About

Akiko Kawabata (川端朗子, b. 1986, Osaka) is a Japanese contemporary artist working with collage, objects, drawing and mixed media. At the centre of her practice is iro-asobi (“playing with colour”), an intuitive approach in which colour and form develop through play, chance and the process of working with materials.

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Using everyday materials such as paper, acrylic paint, wood and wire, Kawabata combines and rearranges fragments, allowing unexpected forms and relationships to emerge. Rather than working toward a predetermined image, she finds possibilities in accidental combinations, shifts in rhythm and the physical character of the materials themselves.

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Colour plays a central role in her work. Forms often appear somewhere between abstraction and recognizable imagery, as if they are still taking shape before becoming part of a story. Kawabata describes this idea as “finding forms before they become stories,” a concept that has become an important part of her practice.

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Her work also develops through different contexts and collaborations. In her 2024 KAZARI series, she explored Japanese traditions of decoration connected with seasonal customs, folk beliefs, shrines and festivals. More recently, her colours and forms have moved beyond the conventional art object through a collaboration with fashion designer He Anna.

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