Tomoe Hikita's Dreamlike Worlds Debut at Rome's z2o Gallery

Japanese artist Tomoe Hikita (b. 1985) presents her first solo exhibition at z2o gallery in Rome, curated by Davide Ferri. The show features a new cycle of paintings and ceramic weavings that blend influences from Western masters like Morandi, Chagall, Schiele, Cézanne, and Matisse into a dreamlike, playful style. Hikita's works are dominated by fantastic animals—such as an enigmatic anthropomorphic antelope and a small snake whose tail extends from the canvas onto the wall—and multiple nude female figures rendered in charcoal, appearing to dissolve into or emerge from backgrounds painted with quick acrylic and oil strokes. A signature element is the diagonal fields that create holes in the image, evoking caves and a sense of suspension. The artist lives in Nuremberg, Germany, a city with a dark history, yet her landscapes radiate lightness. Curator Davide Ferri notes that the gray surroundings may generate a need for sharper focus in her artistic sensibility. The exhibition echoes a previous show at z2o, Nazzarena Poli Maramotti's "Una fòla" (2022), which also combined painting and ceramics with invented lands and animal presences. Hikita's aesthetic roots include the Japanese concept of Ma (間), which finds meaning in emptiness and rejects duality. The exhibition runs at z2o gallery in Rome.