Asuka Kaneko

Born in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, Asuka Kaneko graduated from the Department of Architecture and Environmental Design in the Faculty of Design Engineering at Tohoku University of Art and Design. She has been based in Kyoto since 2024.

Drawing on her experience in architectural and design projects, Kaneko developed an interest in architects’ conceptual drawings and unbuilt architecture. Her practice takes as its starting point the traces of thought and hesitation found in such works. Taking places she has visited as her subjects, she works in acrylic and pigment ink to depict landscapes freed from the constraints of reality. Probing the sense of dissonance that arises as an image is given physical form, she continues to ask what the landscape of “a world that never came to be” might look like.

Her solo exhibitions include Somewhere Other Than Here (Gallery201, Tokyo, 2024), and her group exhibitions include The Direction of White | Sens of Shiro (Kyoto Tsutaya Books, Kyoto, 2026).