Shinjiro Tanaka is an artist whose practice is grounded in Hazama, a perspective that explores the transformative potential emerging where cultures, values, perceptions, and places intersect.
Born in Los Angeles and raised in Tokyo, Tanaka has spent his life navigating different cultural and creative landscapes. His experiences across advertising, street dance, and contemporary art, together with living with ASD and ADHD, have shaped the way he perceives the world—not as a collection of fixed categories, but as an ever-changing network of relationships, patterns, and possibilities. From these experiences emerged Hazama, a concept that has become the foundation of his artistic practice.
For Tanaka, Hazama is not simply a space between two things. It is a place where dialogue begins, transformation becomes possible, and new relationships take shape. Rather than treating difference as something to overcome, his work considers it a source of creativity, resilience, and renewal.
His practice spans painting, murals, installations, digital media, live painting, and participatory projects. Rather than representing separate disciplines, these are different approaches to exploring the same fundamental questions. Influenced by his background in street dance, his visual language is shaped by rhythm, repetition, movement, and improvisation, making invisible relationships tangible through physical space and shared experience.
After studying economics at Keio University, Tanaka began his career in advertising. The Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 prompted him to reconsider the relationship between life and artistic expression, leading him to relocate to New York to pursue art. Living and creating within culturally diverse communities further deepened Hazama as both a personal philosophy and an artistic methodology.
Based in Tokyo, Tanaka works internationally through exhibitions, public art, murals, installations, and collaborative projects across Japan, the United States, and Europe. His recent body of work, Broken, yet still golden, reflects on the dignity, resilience, and potential that remain within fracture, proposing new ways of imagining connection in an increasingly divided world.
Across every medium, Tanaka invites us to see boundaries not as endings, but as places where new ways of seeing, relating, and becoming can emerge.
Shinjiro Tanaka
ARTIST
History
Solo Exhibition
2026
Broken, yet still golden / Historia Gallery (Tokyo, Japan)
2025
Lost and Found / Grassroots Yokohama (Kanagawa, Japan)
2024
CHUMS x SHINJIRO TANAKA Collaboration Exhibition / CHUMS Omotesando (Tokyo, Japan)
2023
Reverse / All Day Gallery (Tokyo, Japan)
Rebirth / Gallery Max New York (New York, USA)
2022
Dashi Joint / Dashi Brooklyn (New York, USA)
a Moment of Eternity / Medel Gallery Shu (Tokyo, Japan)
2021
Somehow Connected / eplus LIVING ROOM CAFE＆DINING (Tokyo, Japan)
Untitled / NORA HAIR SALON (Tokyo, Japan)
2020
Augmentation / Why not? (Tokyo, Japan)
Carpe Diem / eplus LIVING ROOM CAFE＆DINING (Tokyo, Japan)
Memento Mori / Pulplism (Tokyo, Japan)
2019
PEN / Why not? (Tokyo, Japan)
REINCARNATION / RIGNA TERRACE TOKYO (Tokyo, Japan)
NYC STREET ART PROJECT / Port of Call Daikanyama (Tokyo, Japan)
2018
FACE / Sora Zenon (Tokyo, Japan)
01
Group Exhibition
2026
Springbeast Festival (Stockholm, Sweden)
Tokyo Streets X / WPÜ GALLERY SHINJUKU (Tokyo, Japan)
2025
HOWLIN' / All Street Gallery (New York, USA)
2024
Future is now Group Show / 54 Crosby St (New York, USA)
SIW2024 x SHIBUYA ART SCRAMBLE / Shibuya Cast (Tokyo, Japan)
2023
WHAT CAFE SPECIAL MARKET 2023 AUTUMN / WHAT CAFE (Tokyo, Japan)
Square Spaces / KEY TERRACE HOTEL SEAMORE (Wakayama, Japan)
2022
The Playroom of Fine Art / between the arts gallery (Tokyo, Japan)
Follow the Lines / WHAT CAFE (Tokyo, Japan)
Artist ! Artist ! Artist ! Matsuya Contemporary Art Selection / Matsuya Ginza (Tokyo, Japan)
WHAT CAFE x WATOWA GALLERY EXHIBITION -DRIVE UP!- / WHAT CAFE (Tokyo, Japan)
Unplugged / TRiCERA Museum (Tokyo, Japan)
THE SELECTED vol. 2 / Elephant Studio (Tokyo, Japan)
2021
Experiments and Thoughts - Four Artists / KITTE Marunouchi (Tokyo, Japan)
CONNECT / KIMPTON SHINJUKU TOKYO (Tokyo, Japan)
LIGHT BRAIN Vol.1 / ITOKI TOKYO XORK (Tokyo, Japan)
POWER OF ART / WHAT CAFE (Tokyo, Japan)
Spring Healing / Tokyo Art Studio (Tokyo, Japan)
Born New Art / Shibuya Scramble Square (Tokyo, Japan)
ART MARKET TENNOZ (Tokyo, Japan)
WHAT CAFE POP UP SHOW with 100 ARTWORK (Tokyo, Japan)
02
Live Performance
2025
ARTS-A-GLOW / Burien, USA
Hustle Break Tokyo 10th anniversary / CHACARA (Kanagawa, Japan)
2024
This&That Vol. 47: “Colors of the City” / BnA_WALL (Tokyo, Japan)
Chaga-Uma Festival / Shakujii Hikawa Shrine (Tokyo, Japan)
Ascott Unlimited 40th Anniversary Dinner Event / THE UPPER (Tokyo, Japan)
New Style Hustle Party / REP music cafe (New York, USA)
Kichi-On / Dig Bowl Kichijoji (Tokyo, Japan)
Arifuku Onsen Music Festival / Arifuku Onsen (Shimane, Japan)
Night Lyf / Lyf Ginza (Tokyo, Japan)
Evergreen / 3pm Cafe (Tokyo, Japan)
2023 Joint Jam Session / Secret Venue (Tokyo, Japan)
Evergreen / 3pm Cafe (Tokyo, Japan)
WHAT CAFE SPECIAL MARKET 2023 AUTUMN / WHAT CAFE (Tokyo, Japan)
Late Night Groove -Tokyo Edition- (Tokyo, Japan)
Sunday Afternoon Party / Sunday (Tokyo, Japan)
CHUMS CAMP 2023 / Rising Field Karuizawa (Nagano, Japan)
For the future 2023 / Nakaikebukuro Park (Tokyo, Japan)
Future is Now / Bushwick (New York, USA)
CUPA Dance Showcase / Symphony Space (New York, USA)
Rebirth / Gallery Max New York (New York, USA)
2022
ART PROJECT TAKASAKI (Gunma, Japan)
Follow the Lines / WHAT CAFE (Tokyo, Japan)
WHAT CAFE x WATOWA GALLERY EXHIBITION -DRIVE UP!- / WHAT CAFE (Tokyo, Japan)
Ofuna Jam 10th anniversary / Jam (Kanagawa, Japan)
Jiyugaoka Megami Festival / Jiyugaoka (Tokyo, Japan)
Yamashiro Art Market / Yamashiro Onsen (Ishikawa, Japan)
Roppongi Art Night / Roppongi West Park (Tokyo, Japan)
03
Mural
2026
Springbeast Festival (Stockholm)
2025
Caption by Hyatt Kabutocho (Tokyo)
Evolute Academia of NY (New York)
Welling Walls (New York)
Freemans Alley (New York)
2024
POD Hotel Brooklyn (New York)
Han-bi-je (Osaka)
2022
POD Hotel Brooklyn (New York)
Dashi Brooklyn (New York)
ART PROJECT TAKASAKI (Gunma)
Painted the school warehouse with all the students at an elementary school (Tokyo)
Sanko Facilities Inc. (Tokyo)
Comota CO., LTD. (Kanagawa)
eplus Living Room Cafe (Tokyo)
AZDEN CORPORATION (Tokyo)
2021
Fujitsu Limited (Kanagawa)
Nishihachi Project (Tokyo)
Ocean's Camp Toramii (Chiba)
Anker Kobe (Hyogo)
eplus Living Room Cafe (Tokyo)
Sumika (Shinjuku, Tokyo)
2020
Hachi Hachi (Shibuya, Tokyo)
eplus Living Room Cafe (Tokyo)
2019
Southbank (London)
Brooklyn Parlor (Tokyo)
Harajuku Mural Project (Tokyo)
04
Collaboration
2026
Kei Owada × MASSAN×BASHIRY “Garden”
Digital Single Jacket Artwork & Design
2024
Evolute Academia of NY / Interactive Installation
CHUMS 2024 Fall/Winter Collaboration
Tateno Elementary School / Interactive Installation
Arisa Makita / Music and visual collaboration
2023
Norikura Kogen Eco-Festival 2023 Entrance Curtains
Macool New Collection 2023 Spring Summer Collaborative Product Design
Favorric Collaborative Product Design
Kodama Project Collaborative Kokeshi Design
2022
Looney Tunes Tweety 80th Anniversary Collaboration Figure
c子あまね "Japan" Digital Album Covers (Sony Music)
Sound Inn "S" Collaborative Logo (BS-TBS)
2021
「oto to e to... ～ART×MUSIC～」LIVE Opening Video
Immersive theatre "Venus of Tokyo" Artwork
SXSW2020 Map Project – Shinjiro Tanaka x Stroly
Re-Bear Project
and more
05
Prizes
2022
SHIBUYA ART AWARDS Nominated - Tokyo, Japan
2020
Asia Digital Art Award Fukuoka- Finalists' Awards- Fukuoka, Japan
2019
D Contemporary Painting Prize 2019 - Nominated- London, United Kingdom
ART BATTLE TOKYO- First Prize- Tokyo, Japan
06