In a famous 2020 essay titled The Resistance of the Slow Gaze , wrote: "In the age of AI-generated images that arrive instantly and perfectly, I am painting imperfections that take a season to complete. I am not competing with the machine. I am proving that I am human." Market Presence and Collectibility For collectors, Chitose Saegusa represents a relatively accessible entry point into high-end Japanese contemporary art, though prices are rising. In 2019, her diptych The Glass Coffin sold at SBI Art Auction for ¥8.4 million (approx. $78,000 USD). Smaller works on paper can be found for $3,000–$8,000.
Unlike many of her peers who studied Western oil painting at Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku), Saegusa initially trained in (Japanese-style painting). This traditional discipline, which uses mineral pigments ( iwa-enogu ), glue ( nikawa ), and washi paper, would become the technical backbone of her career. However, she quickly became frustrated with the rigid subject matter of classical Nihonga—flowers, birds, and historical landscapes. Chitose Saegusa
"I wasn't interested in painting what was pretty," Saegusa stated in a 2018 interview with Bijutsu Techo . "I was interested in painting what was missing." Chitose Saegusa first captured national attention with her series The Empty Room . These large-scale scrolls depict hyper-detailed, lifeless domestic interiors: a kitchen with a single cup of cooling tea, a child’s bedroom without the child, an office desk with a flickering fluorescent light. In a famous 2020 essay titled The Resistance
For those discovering Japanese post-minimalism and neo-nihonga (modern Japanese painting), understanding is essential. Her work serves as a bridge between the ghostly yūrei (ghost) prints of the Edo period and the psychological alienation of 21st-century urban life. Early Life: The Shadows of Hokkaido Born in 1975 in the city of Chitose (a geographical coincidence that she often jokes about as "pre-destined irony") on the northern island of Hokkaido, Saegusa grew up surrounded by a landscape of extremes. The long, brutal winters of Hokkaido—where the sun barely breaches the horizon and snow muffles all sound—stamped an indelible aesthetic onto her psyche. In 2019, her diptych The Glass Coffin sold
For the connoisseur of Japanese art, for the student of psychological space, or for the casual viewer looking for beauty that disturbs rather than comforts, offers an experience that cannot be replicated, and cannot be scrolled past.