Yuhei Kobayashi is an artist born in 1990 and based in Tokyo. Kobayashi primarily uses print media such as photography and printmaking. His work explores the history of photographic art within Japan’s unique context, incorporating references and quotations from local cultures like manga, yankii culture, hippie culture, and magazine culture. This includes print works utilizing the sequential process of silk-screen printing, photographic works sized to fit discarded mat frames, photographic works created by pressing printed matter against negative film inside a camera to make copies, and sculptural works replicating ready-made objects like empty cigarette boxes. The characteristics and production processes inherent to photography and printed matter themselves become the structure of the work. Through analog techniques and speeds somewhat counter to the digital-dominated present, the passage of time, layering, and compression are directly reflected as texture within the work, forming part of its appeal.
Major exhibitions include Void + (Tokyo/2022), Misako & Rosen (Tokyo/2023), Lavender Opener Chair (Tokyo/2021), and mumei (Tokyo/2020).