Japanese artist Shigeo Otake has returned to Hong Kong for the first time since a brief visit in 1985, this time to present his solo exhibition “Agoraphilia” at White Cube gallery. Opening earlier this month, the show marks Otake’s debut in Hong Kong and is part of White Cube’s initiative to showcase established artists not currently represented by the gallery. The July 9 preview attracted visitors from across Asia, including South Korea, Singapore, and Shanghai.
Otake, 71, studied early Italian Renaissance painting techniques at Kyoto City University of Arts and is known internationally for his fresco and egg tempera works. His paintings feature intricate medieval-style towns inhabited by fantastical hybrid creatures, often drawing on allegory to explore contemporary themes. In his 2025 piece The Magnate, for example, a birdlike gargoyle consumed by its desire to acquire a necklace becomes oblivious to a thief stealing from it, symbolizing the insatiable appetite of art collectors.
Many of the European-inspired architectural details in his work are informed by places Otake has seen in his native Kyoto region or during his travels. A particular fascination with parasitic organisms, especially cordyceps fungi, informs the grotesque, human-fungal hybrids that populate his paintings. Otake regularly gathers visual references from local markets and natural environments while traveling, incorporating these into his art.
During his visit to Hong Kong, Otake spent time exploring the city’s streets and surrounding nature to source inspiration firsthand. On a hot Friday morning, he visited the Mong Kok goldfish market on Tung Choi Street, sketching aquatic life and colorful street scenes along Fa Yuen Street’s open-air market. Despite initial hesitation to be photographed at work, Otake expressed interest in creating a painting capturing the moment of artistic engagement amid the market’s vibrancy.
After lunch at a local Chiu Chow restaurant, where he sampled marinated tofu and bitter melon soup, Otake’s focus shifted to the nearby Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve in the New Territories. There, he demonstrated his skill in locating cordyceps fungi, carefully examining the forest floor and leaf undersides along a stream. The artist found several yellow cordyceps species, including one not found in Japan, which he documented with a vintage camera once owned by his late mother.
For Otake, who spends most of the year traveling to observe and document new species before returning to his studio in winter to paint, the discovery adds a new element to his creative lexicon. The Hong Kong cordyceps will inspire future works, introducing a local fungal species into his surreal, Renaissance-inspired realms.
“Shigeo Otake Agoraphilia” will remain on view at White Cube Hong Kong, located at 50 Connaught Road Central, until August 29. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.