White Cube is pleased to announce global representation of Japanese artist Shigeo Otake (b. 1955, Kobe, Japan).
Developed independently over more than four decades, Otake’s singular visual language bridges classical pictorial techniques with an expansive visionary realm – one that speaks to contemporary paradigms of interspecies symbiosis, radical coexistence, and non-human agency. Populated by fantastical creatures, fungi, flora and fauna, his compositions conjure moments of collective participation and mutual exchange. Human and otherworldly entities navigate shared environments, turning seemingly mundane transactions into complex allegories of social and biological life.
In autumn 2026, White Cube will present new paintings by Otake at Art Basel Paris (20–25 October 2026, Booth B34) and at West Bund Art & Design, Shanghai (10–15 November 2026, Booth 1F). Additionally, the artist’s major two-part institutional survey organised by the Consortium Museum continues in Dijon, France until 21 March 2027. His work is also currently featured in the group exhibitions ‘This Must Be the Place’ at Whitechapel Gallery in London (until 8 November 2026) and ‘BEATA RURIS OTIA FUNGIS DANICIS’ at Sophienholm, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark (until 17 January 2027).
Otake’s practice demonstrates a command of Early Italian Renaissance mediums – including egg tempera and fresco transfer – which he learned at Kyoto City University of Arts and further deepened during his travels across Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Working at the intersection of Eastern and Western traditions, he references 15th- and 16th-century masters, drawing echoes from Hieronymus Bosch’s apocalyptic gardens, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s village chronicles and monumental genre scenes by Pieter Aertsen.
He also engages with secular Eastern iconography, notably formulating his own interpretation of Hyakki Yagyō, the night parade of supernatural beings famously rendered by Kawanabe Kyosai (1831–89). In Otake’s rendition, shuttered storefronts give way to a carnival of insects, marine life and human-fungal hybrids, transforming a place of commerce into a vibrant site of multiplicity and mobilisation.
Following his debut exhibition with the gallery, ‘Shigeo Otake: Agoraphilia,’ at White Cube Hong Kong (10 July – 29 August 2026), Otake will have his first solo presentation in the UK at White Cube Mason’s Yard, London in spring 2028.
