Aiko
Most work is never seen because nobody gives it a wall.
Where it started
Aiko grew up in Kanazawa, where her mother restored lacquerware in a workshop behind their house. She learned to be quiet around fine things.
What they wanted
She wanted to be a painter, and she moved to Tokyo for art school with one suitcase and a box of brushes.
The wall
Five years of rejection letters. Her work was good, and the galleries said so, and nobody had space.
The moment it clicked
She hung a friend's show in a borrowed laundromat in Ebisu, and sixty people came. Watching strangers stand in front of her friend's paintings, she felt more than she ever had in front of her own. She was best at giving other people's work a wall.
The new path
She put her savings into a ten-square-meter room above a soba shop and opened it to artists nobody else would show.
The hard part
The first year she slept in the gallery to save rent, and the landlord nearly closed her down for it.
The breakthrough
Two of her first artists were picked up by museums. Collectors now climb the soba shop stairs on opening nights.
Today
Aiko runs a real gallery in Ebisu with clean white walls and a long waiting list. She reads every artist's statement through the Ebisu frame, which sits on a chain around her neck between openings.
This is Aiko's locked face. Every photo and video of her starts from it, so her look stays the same everywhere her appears.
Kenji
Mei
Ren