tokyo art culture

Experience Dive into the heart of our heritage – where the boundless ocean meets everyday life.

Hiraku Suzuki (b. 1978) is a Japanese artist whose practice bridges drawing, archaeology, and performance. After graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts, he has built an international career across Sydney, São Paulo, London, New York, and Berlin. Suzuki’s work expands the very notion of drawing by tracing the hidden lines that weave through space and time.

Central to his practice is what he calls “drawing ecology,” a system in which he collects mark-making traces—whether in archaeological excavation sites, street symbols, plant forms, mineral veins, or the ephemeral paths of non-human light sources—and then reanimates them through his own bodily gestures.

In his series “Sea and Symbol,” Suzuki applies silver-reflective ink to deep-blue canvases that evoke both the ocean’s abyss and the cosmos. Sixteen large-scale panels are arranged in a perfect circle, their clustered symbols conjuring luminous plankton, dividing cells, or pulsating supernovae. The ink itself seems to surge and splash—at once a microscopic seascape and a vast cosmic expanse—telling a story of creation and dissolution.

By invoking the “mother ocean” that sustains all life, Suzuki also reminds us of our era’s pressing challenges: pollution, climate-driven floods, and the fragile balance of our planet. The intricate network of light symbols—point intersecting line, wave meeting wave—resonates with the visual language of contemporary cities, yet ultimately draws us back to the primal origins of civilization itself.