Houxo Que Solo Exhibition
“Eerie and Beautiful Labors”
▼OPENING RECEPTION
March 21 (Saturday), 2026 | 17:00-18:00
■Period
March 21st (Saturday), 2026 - April 25th (Saturday), 2026
Wednesdays through Saturdays, 13:00 - 18:00
(closed on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and National Holidays)
■会場
KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
4-7-6 Shirakawa, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0021 JAPAN
*car parking available in front of the gallery
2026 | acrylic medium, iPhone (lithium-ion battery, aluminum / stainless steel case, glass, rare earth elements), 20W power delivery supply, silicone, magnet | © Houxo Que, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
2026 | acrylic medium, iPhone (lithium-ion battery, aluminum / stainless steel case, glass, rare earth elements), 20W power delivery supply, silicone, magnet | © Houxo Que, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
iPhone view (labor)
2026 | acrylic medium, iPhone (lithium-ion battery, aluminum / stainless steel case, glass, rare earth elements),
20W power delivery supply, silicone, magnet | © Houxo Que, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Houxo Que titled “Eerie and Beautiful Labor” starting Saturday, March 21, 2026.
Houxo Que began his career as a street artist, creating murals inspired by graffiti. In recent years, he has become known as an artist who expands the possibilities of painting through works such as installations featuring water surfaces—the primordial display—illuminated by light, and displays that flash as they are pierced by steel pipes. This exhibition will present Houxo Que’s new paintings.
An iPhone’s front-facing camera mounted on the wall recognizes the viewer, and the on-screen voice announces their presence. Multiple devices are arranged throughout the space, each using VoiceOver—an accessibility feature—to read aloud information on its screen in different languages. As these multilingual voices overlap, an environment emerges in which multiple voices intertwine. The smartphone screens, layered with fingerprints rendered in transparent acrylic medium, distort the light and blur the viewer’s image.
Smartphones are devices that are constantly touched and remain active throughout our daily lives. Receiving notifications, recognizing faces, speaking, and responding to gaze—it resembles a body performing a certain kind of labor. Such a body is shaped by the mining of rare minerals, complex manufacturing processes, distant server clusters, and the labor of many people. Some of these resources are geographically linked to conflict zones, and electronic technologies, including semiconductors, have a history of dual use, oscillating between civilian and military applications.
Que focuses on the iPhone as a device where the functions of the device, the human body, and the layers of society and history surrounding them intersect. There, the outlines of contemporary culture and the technological environment manifest as a single form. Amid a situation in which the “seeing subject” moves back and forth among the device, the screen, and the body, the iPhone itself—as a visual device—emerges as a supporting medium.
We cordially invite all to this exhibition, where Houxo Que’s new works, created as an attempt to draw this multi-layered device into the form of paintings, are on display.
Artist Statement
I am interested in the finger gestures used to operate smartphones. Actions such as pinching and swiping have become the basic interface for manipulating perspectives and images. However, many of these gestures themselves vanish from the screen's surface. We see the images, but the physical movements that create them pass by without leaving a trace. The history of physical interactions exchanged between us and our smartphones is treated as almost transparent and is never recorded.
I feel a personal connection to these transparent gestures. Drawing from my experience of living with multiple identities, I sometimes feel my existence is uncertain within society. It’s a sensation of being there, undeniably present, yet unable to fully belong to anything, with my contours remaining vague.
Guided by this feeling, the works in this exhibition aim to make invisible manipulations and bodily sensations visible through painting. The act of layering finger traces with a transparent medium also seeks to preserve gestures—which are typically not recorded—as material. Using the form of painting, I have embedded the contours of the experience that arises between human movement and technological operation—contours that would otherwise disappear—within the material.
Houxo Que
Artist Profile
Houxo Que
Houxo Que was born in 1984 in Tokyo. Encountering graffiti in his teens, Que began his artistic activities mainly on the street walls. From then on, he has been known for his fluorescent paintings and installations using black lights. He has also presented his creative process at a number of live painting shows. From 2012, he started painting directly onto displays.
Group exhibitions include “150 years” (2025, Tokyo), “Alternative Living” (2025, SusHi Tech Square, Tokyo), “As you can see, I haven't stopped being a painter.” (2023, Sono Aida / Watowa Gallery, Tokyo), “Reborn-Art Festival 2021-22” (2021, Former Sen-nin Buro, Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Japan), “ANB TOKYO Opening Exhibition ‘ENCOUNTERS’” (2020, ANB TOKYO), “TOKYO 2021” (2019, TODA BUILDING, Tokyo), “CANCER ‘THE MECHANISM OF RESEMBLING’” (2018, EUKARYOTE, Tokyo).
Group exhibitions include “150 years” (2025, Tokyo), “Alternative Living” (2025, SusHi Tech Square, Tokyo), “As you can see, I haven't stopped being a painter.” (2023, Sono Aida / Watowa Gallery, Tokyo), “Reborn-Art Festival 2021-22” (2021, Former Sen-nin Buro, Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Japan), “ANB TOKYO Opening Exhibition ‘ENCOUNTERS’” (2020, ANB TOKYO), “TOKYO 2021” (2019, TODA BUILDING, Tokyo), “CANCER ‘THE MECHANISM OF RESEMBLING’” (2018, EUKARYOTE, Tokyo).
His 16,777,216 view #2 was selected for Jury Selections, Art Division at the 19th Japan Media Arts Festival (2015).
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