Hajime Sorayama returns to Tokyo with his most extensive retrospective, a presentation that maps how his visual language has evolved around light, transparency, and reflection. The exhibition brings together early landmarks—such as the first robot painting created in 1978 for a whisky advertisement—alongside canvases exploring mechanical life in forms ranging from dinosaurs to unicorns. Iconic commercial works, including drawings for Sony’s AIBO and the album art for Aerosmith, appear with new sculptures and a large-scale video installation that extends his interest in optical illusion and material fiction.

Sorayama has often explained his process as an attempt to depict what cannot be touched: to paint light by first painting air, to express air through transparency, and to conquer transparency by mastering reflection. His work sits within a lineage of artists who pushed the boundaries of perception, yet his pursuit is distinctly contemporary—rooted in precision, surface tension, and the seduction of engineered beauty.

The mechanical figures that populate his world propose an imagined future where organic and synthetic bodies merge. They raise questions about intelligence, mortality, and coexistence with technology, using fictional forms to provoke reflection on how far human evolution may extend. Beneath their polished surfaces, these works hint at broader narratives: the desire to transcend physical limits, the possibility of eternal life through machinery, and the emotional ties that persist even within imagined futures.

Spanning from the late 1970s to the present, the retrospective offers a clear view of Sorayama’s artistic progression—how a disciplined fascination with shine, contour, and illusion grew into a singular philosophy. For both dedicated followers and new audiences, the exhibition reveals the depth behind his hyperreal surfaces and affirms his place as an artist who continues to redefine how we see light, body, and imagination.