WAITINGROOM is pleased to announce “In Drawing,” a solo exhibition by Rikako Kawauchi, at Episode Seoul, a new project space in Seoul. Episode Seoul is a new art project established with the aim of connecting Seoul’s art scene with the international art community. While centered around exhibitions, the project is conceived as a platform for creating layered encounters and dialogues for art professionals from Korea and abroad, combining exhibitions with experiences unique to Seoul, such as artist studio visits, exchanges with collectors, and visits to restaurants, architectural sites, and cultural spaces.
In line with this vision for Episode Seoul, WAITINGROOM will organize the first year-long program for Episode Seoul, “Episode Seoul: Chapter 1 — Initials BB” Composed of seven episodes, “Initials BB” is a year-long program in which Tokyo-based galleries and gallerists introduce female artists, shaping each exhibition through their own perspectives, relationships, and practices. While each exhibition will stand independently as a solo presentation, together they will form a loose yet continuous narrative, aiming to foster ongoing relationships among artists, galleries, collectors, and audiences. The program will begin with Rikako Kawauchi’s solo exhibition organized by WAITINGROOM, followed by presentations by other galleries including KAYOKOYUKI, MISAKO & ROSEN, HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Satoko Oe Contemporary, and ANOMALY with additional galleries to be announced. By introducing artists through each gallery’s unique perspective and relationship with them, the program seeks to create new dialogues and exchanges within the context of Seoul.
in my arms, 2023, watercolor and pencil on paper, 1100 × 840 mm
About the Exhibition
As the opening exhibition of Chapter 1, “In Drawing” focuses on drawings, which hold an important place within Rikako Kawauchi’s practice. Working across a wide range of media, including painting, drawing, wire, neon, marble, and embroidery, Kawauchi has explored themes such as the body, internal organs, food, desire, and the cycles of life. Among these, drawing is a particularly direct space for the artist, where thoughts and sensations arise most immediately. Through line, Kawauchi delicately gives form to the contours of the body, as well as to sensations related to touching, eating, and living.
In this exhibition, Kawauchi’s drawings are presented through three loosely defined zones centered on the motifs of the body, hands, and food. Lines that evoke the body often appear as contours, yet they do not settle into any fixed figure or form; rather, they seem to drift between inside and outside. Hands appear as traces of actions such as touching, grasping, supporting, and holding, suggesting points of contact between the body and the world. Meanwhile, food motifs such as fruits, bread, and cakes, though familiar and intimate, emerge in Kawauchi’s work as presences that evoke desire, memory, nourishment, transformation, and the cycles of life.
In Kawauchi’s drawings, lines are not used to clearly explain something, but rather to touch upon sensations held within the body and thoughts that have not yet taken shape as words. The fine lines drawn across the paper, together with the bleeding and colors of watercolor, appear at times like parts of the body, fruits, faces, organs, or emotions, while constantly shifting into something else. Within these works, seeing, touching, eating, and thinking overlap with one another, and the act of drawing itself emerges as a space that reconnects the body with the world.
The title “In Drawing” suggests a perspective that understands drawing not simply as a completed image, but as a process of entering into lines, where bodies and sensations come into being. Through the power of drawing that lies at the foundation of Rikako Kawauchi’s practice, this exhibition marks the beginning of Episode Seoul’s first program, “Chapter 1 — Initials BB”
Left: It will blossom from now on, 2024, watercolor and pencil on paper, 255 × 360 mm
Center: nap, 2025, watercolor and pencil on paper, 318 × 410 mm
Right: Cardamom Danish Roll, 2026, watercolor and pencil on paper, 227 × 159 mm
About the artist, Rikako Kawauchi
Born in Tokyo in 1990, Rikako Kawauchi completed her MFA in Oil Painting at the Graduate School of Art and Design, Tama Art University in 2017, and is currently based in Tokyo. Her recent exhibitions include the solo exhibition “The Blade of the Forest Within” (2026, Gana Art Hannam / Gana Art Namsan, Seoul, Korea); the two-person exhibition “THE HEAD” (2026, Edward Dwurnik Foundation, Warsaw, Poland); the group exhibition “DONATED WITH LOVE” (2026, ALBERTINA KLOSTERNEUBURG, Vienna, Austria); the solo exhibition “The Shape of Water Hardens into Stone.” (2025, Kurobe City Art Museum, Toyama, Japan); the group exhibition “Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art 5th Anniversary Exhibition: New Utopia — What Is Our New Ecosystem?” (2025, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art, Aomori, Japan); the solo exhibition “Paintings & Drawings – Food, Animals, Organs, Plants, Bodies, etc, everything outside me is everywhere in the air, I breathe them in, I breathe them out.” (2024, Van der Grinten Galerie, Cologne, Germany); the group exhibition “A Personal View of Japanese Contemporary Art: Takahashi Ryutaro Collection” (2024, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan); the solo exhibition “Even the pigments in paints were once stones” (2023, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo, Japan); “The Voice of the Soul” (2023, ERA GALLERY, Milan, Italy); the group exhibition “Body, Love, Gender” (Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea); and the group exhibition “Arts Maebashi 10th Anniversary Exhibition – New Horizon: From History to the Future” (2023, Arts Maebashi, Gunma, Japan). She also received the Kenjiro Hosaka Prize at the 1st CAF Award (2014), the SHISEIDO ART EGG Prize at SHISEIDO ART EGG (2015), the Yuki Terase Prize at the TERRADA ART AWARD 2021, and the Grand Prize (VOCA Prize) at VOCA 2022: The Vision of Contemporary Art—New Perspectives in Painting (2022).
Solo Exhibition “The Blade of the Forest Within” 2026, Gana Art Hannam, Seoul, Korea
