X ING (Crossing): to intersect, to cross, and a state in which gazes, bodies, and information continuously intersect within the city.

The city is constituted by unconscious belief.

Just as Marian devotion in the Middle Ages gave rise to Gothic architecture, in the contemporary city too, the “something” that people believe in may be what constructs the structure of space.

That belief is not religion, but resides on the surface.

Akihabara, the point of departure for this series, is a city where individual desires and preferences are excessively exposed, and the inner self appears directly on the outside.
Ginza, on the other hand, is a place where desire is highly edited and presented in refined forms.

People reflect themselves in shop windows, indicating their affiliation and position through their attire.
Just as coats of arms and motifs once signified communities, in the present, brands have become the symbols that replace them.

I stand between these two cities.
Publicly, I am in a position of engaging with brands, constructing the “outside,” while privately, I am sustained by content and images.

In works based on research in Ginza, I repeat the contemporary symbol of the brand logo and reconfigure it within urban space.
A brand is the “surface” that people unconsciously believe in.

Intersections are spoken of as the centers of the city, yet at their core there is nothing.
Without touching one another, people cross paths on the crosswalk, their trajectories intersecting as they pass by.

The black and white zebra lines both guide and divide the flow of people, generating a rhythm unique to the city.
It is a repeated act, almost like an unconscious ritual.

Within this, the face of a woman suddenly appears.
She is a real person, yet at the same time emerges as an image.

In the city, the image of a woman is both an object of consumption and a medium onto which ideals and desires are projected.
In that image, I see the afterimage of Mary in the present day.

Brands, women, intersections.
Though they belong to different layers, together they form the structure of belief within the city.Within their overlap, a space emerges.
It has no physical substance, yet it undeniably exists.

▼Artist

Yoichiro Masuda (https://www.instagram.com/yoichiro_masuda/)

Born in 1981
2005 Graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, Faculty of Art and Design, Musashino Art University
Based in Tokyo

Yoichiro Masuda is a painter whose work focuses on urban intersections and crosswalks. Using urban spaces where people, gazes, information, and desire intersect as motifs, he depicts contemporary landscapes in which order and chaos, beauty and unease contend with one another. Through fragmented motifs and repetitive lines, he reconstructs as paintings the psychology and structures that appear on the surface of the city.

▼Exhibition Information

【Date】2026/5/16(Sat) – 5/31(Sun)
【Open】12:00 – 19:00
【Close】Monday
【Location】TERRADA ART COMPLEX II 3F, 1-32-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0002