Kei Tajima – Drawing Lines of Natural Numbers

2026.7.3 – 8.5

Kenji Taki Gallery Roppongi is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Kei Tajima, starting on Friday, July 3.

Tajima’s past works include rolled canvas pieces titled Roll Painting, lump-like works created using paint and masking tape, and Stacking Painting, where painted canvases are layered three-dimensionally on the picture plane. Through these creations, he challenges the viewer to question the very nature of flatness in painting.

Although his approach may seem resistant at first glance, Tajima remains deeply committed to the act of “drawing” to explore his expression. He continues to produce works that render his unique theoretical perspectives into pictorial space.

For his first exhibition at Kenji Taki Gallery, we will showcase Drawing Lines of Natural Numbers, a series that Tajima is currently dedicating his intensive focus to.

Drawing Lines of Natural Numbers

Drawing Lines of Natural Numbers series began with the question: ‘How can one draw a perfect square?’

I use natural numbers to determine the length of the lines I draw on white paper. I start with 1 mm (a dot), then 2 mm, then 3 mm, and so on, increasing the length of the lines in accordance with the natural numbers. I leave a 1 mm gap between each line and draw them using a ruler. If a line does not fit within the width of the drawing image, I continue it on the row below. I stop working once I reach the predetermined height of the drawing image, and the length of the last line that has been drawn becomes the title of the work.

The process is a simple repetition following a set of rules.

When I first began this series, I would discard any work in which I noticed an error. If I misread a number, I would treat the work as invalid and start again from the beginning. However, no matter how carefully I worked, mistakes would occur. One can misread numbers without realizing it, and the body, too, continues to shift ever so slightly. These discrepancies remain within the composition.

Through this practice, which began in the pursuit of a perfect square, my interest has shifted towards the composition as a manifestation of cognition, the body, and the accumulation of time.

In 2021, I set out to create a small Drawing Lines of Natural Numbers piece as part of an art exchange with a young artist. By adapting the dimensions I had been using in my another series at the time, I was able to complete the work within a single day.

In that work, within a 150mm-wide image, the final line I drew reached 300mm – twice the width of the image – and stopped. Although this was not an intended result, I found beauty in that coincidence.

When I attempted to create another work of the same size, I recalled a special exhibition of On Kawara’s Today series that I had seen at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art during my student days. There, only one piece of work with that day’s date was displayed each day. I was deeply moved by that exhibition, and the experience remained in my memory for a long time.

Drawing Lines of Natural Numbers, a work that is completed within a single day, overlapped with that moving experience from my student days, and Same 1 Day began.

Currently, the Drawing Lines of Natural Numbers series comprises works created over several days and Same 1 Day, which is completed within a single day. Although the time structures of the works differ, they both arise from the same act of drawing lines of natural numbers.

As I continue to create, unexpected structures or coincidences sometimes emerge. For me, these experiences serve as a catalyst for inspiration.

The work comes to a halt. Yet the natural numbers continue beyond that point.

6 June 2026    Kei Tajima