Takaya Mukai (b. 1991) is an artist from Osaka. He contemplates the essential identity that has been unconsciously shaped by a repressed psyche. At the core of his practice are intimate personal experiences such as loneliness and trauma. By carefully attending to the intense tension and psychological fragility brought about by these experiences, he perceives a faint presence of unease even within hope. 

In the series Solitary Garden and Room Night, he deliberately placed himself in an environment where he could no longer avert his gaze from the issues he had long avoided cutting off information and connections to the outside world in order to confront and resolve the internal struggles that had continued to bind him. What is depicted in the works is a psychological struggle to kill the self that had been held captive. 

Rather than exposing a narrative, he aims to appeal to the emotions and impressions surrounding the theme. Abstract themes and symbols emerge within the story, taking shape in the unfolding of the artist’s confession.