吉岡雅哉
コンビニと階段
Masaya Yoshioka: Convenience Store and Staircase
Following the Motif, Following the Material
Masaya Yoshioka describes his artistic practice with the phrase, "Following the motif, following the material." It expresses the mindset of a craftsman—carefully observing his subject while allowing the inherent qualities of his materials to guide the work.
Perhaps the clearest embodiment of this approach is his Staircase series. Centered on the wooden staircase that Yoshioka built inside his own studio, the paintings explore the same subject from countless times of day, viewpoints, and painterly approaches. Rather than canvas, he paints on wooden panels that he constructs himself. Since beginning the series in February 2026, Yoshioka has produced more than 300 paintings within only a few months. The phrase above emerged as his response to the many people who asked, often in astonishment, why he continued to paint the same staircase with such extraordinary intensity.
While the remarkable number of staircase paintings is striking, repeated engagement with a single motif has long been characteristic of Yoshioka's work. The convenience store paintings presented in this exhibition are another example. First begun more than twenty years ago, they have become one of the defining motifs of his practice. Continuing to paint convenience stores to this day, Yoshioka demonstrates that his commitment to "following the motif" long predates the Staircase series.
Convenience store and staircase—subjects that Yoshioka encountered and, as if guided by them, has continued to paint. Both are indispensable parts of everyday life, yet they often pass unnoticed. At first glance, they may seem too ordinary to invite discussion, let alone become the subject of painting. Yet through the exhibitions built around these works, they have revealed themselves as motifs capable of evoking deeply personal memories while opening onto questions that are at once timeless and distinctly contemporary.
Following Yoshioka's solo exhibition The Staircase in May and 2nd Kaidan-ha Exhibition featuring Takuya Inoue, Yohei Sugita, and Masaya Yoshioka, this exhibition presents a space that has itself emerged by following the works—works that, in turn, emerged from the artist's commitment to following his subjects. Just as Yoshioka has built an enduring relationship with his motifs, these works, too, seek to form new relationships with each viewer. We invite you to discover that moment of encounter in the gallery.
Exhibition Dates
August 1 (Sat) – August 9 (Sun), 2026
Opening Hours
12:00 – 19:00
Closed
Monday
Venue
Minnano Gallery
2F, 4-14-3 Higashiueno, Taito-ku, Tokyo
Admission
Free
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Masaya Yoshioka
Born in Hyogo Prefecture, in 1981.
Raised in a family of temple carpenters, Yoshioka mastered traditional craft techniques and became independent, while also studying Western painting on his own from an early age. His work depicts rural landscapes where contemporaneity and folk sensibilities intersect, rendered through a range of painterly styles. In 2026, following a major renovation of his studio, he publicly declared himself a painter.
Fiftysix Convenience Stores
The landscape series Fiftysix Convenience Stores depicts anonymous suburban convenience stores with familiar parking lots lined with compact cars, painted in an Impressionistic touch. In portraying scenes that might appear ordinary and ubiquitous, the works reveal an aspect of Japan’s reality that has rarely been treated as a subject of painting. The perspective of rendering everyday life and culture recalls the role once played by ukiyo-e.
Two decades ago, Yoshioka intuited that “convenience stores could be a subject for painting,” and since then he has returned to them as a recurring motif. Today, the series stands as a record of the convenience store as a mirror of contemporary society, and—given demographic decline and economic pressures—it may also come to be seen as a historical image of a limited era, capturing a landscape that could eventually vanish.
The Staircase
At the end of 2025, while extensively renovating his studio, Masaya Yoshioka also modified the staircase he had built there thirteen years earlier. After adding wooden risers, he found himself unexpectedly drawn to its presence and began painting it as a new motif.
Created at an extraordinary pace, the series soon attracted the attention of other painters and gave rise to a new artistic movement known as the Staircase School. Depicting the same staircase from different times of day, viewpoints, and painterly approaches, Yoshioka paints not on canvas but on wooden panels that he builds himself. This uncompromising method reflects the consistent philosophy that underlies his practice: following the motif, and following the material.
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