Photographer Mariko Ohya's Solo Exhibition "Inner Garden" to Inaugurate OSAJI's First Gallery, Opening April 25, 2026, at "Osaji Kyoto."

OSAJI, a sensitive skin brand that proposes a skincare lifestyle for maintaining healthy and beautiful skin, will host the solo exhibition "Inner Garden" by photographer Mariko Ohya from April 25, 2026, to May 10, 2026, at its first global concept store, "Osaji Kyoto."

This exhibition will serve as the inaugural show for "Cultivate Gallery," the first gallery space for OSAJI, located inside the new "Osaji Kyoto" store opening this spring in Goshominami, Kyoto.

Visitors can experience new works by photographer Mariko Ohya—whose philosophy resonates with the brand, as seen in their previous collaboration for the spring-limited "Urara" fragrance series—presented in a setting curated specifically for the "Osaji Kyoto" space. Through the exhibition, you will see the emotional turbulence, conflicts, and hope captured in her work. It is our hope that by witnessing the light cast upon the days Ms. Ohya has lived through the medium of photography, and how that connects to the inner turbulence of others, this exhibition will serve as an opportunity to encounter and contemplate the emotions that reside in everyone's hearts.

◇Exhibition Overview

Mariko Ohya Photo Exhibition "Inner Garden"

Dates: April 25, 2026 (Sat) – May 10, 2026 (Sun)

Venue: Osaji Kyoto

Address: 172 Kameya-cho, Sakai-machi-dori Nijo-agaru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto

Hours: 10:00 - 18:00

Closed: Mondays (or the following weekday if Monday is a public holiday)

Admission: Free

Exhibition Design: Yusuke Yamagiwa (kenku)

◇Statement

"Inner Garden"

I continue to gather the light that I lack within myself.

There was a period when I lived in a boarding school for a solemn Catholic girls' school deep in the mountains.

It was not an easy time; during my most sensitive adolescent years when I was forming my identity,

I closed my heart, spending six years as if I were in perpetual darkness.

At the same time, the bright colors that should have been in my heart were lost.

This experience remains something I have not been able to wipe away even now.

I was saved, a little, by encountering photography.

The act of peering at the world through a lens feels like pouring light into my pitch-black heart.

To supplement myself through taking pictures, and to continue to allow myself to be re-colored,

that has become my way of life and my prayer to myself.

As I repeatedly looked inward and continued to take photographs, before I knew it, my eyes had turned to nature, such as flowers and greenery.

As I delved deeper into the meaning of this, I realized that those things, which did not register in my eyes at the time while living in the mountains as a student, were actually existing at the edges of my memories.

The fresh flowers that decorated the sanctuary I visited every day, where prayer was my support.

The after-school hours I spent walking, captivated by the scenery that changed with the four seasons.

If I looked around, flowers were blooming and trees were growing everywhere, and I was touching nature in every scene of my life.

I realized then that I had quietly accepted, somewhere deep down, that I was being healed and watched over by the beauty of that nature at times.

I began to want to reconstruct the primal landscape of that place within my heart.

I face the past while reflecting myself upon the fleeting yet resilient life of the natural world.

That leads to accepting the path I have walked and filling in even a little of the lost time and emotions.

It is precisely because so many years have passed that I am allowed to live again by the scenery I can see now.

Mariko Ohya

◇Profile

Mariko Ohya

Photographer. Graduated from the Department of Photography, College of Art, Nihon University.

Completed the Master's Program in Film and Photographic Arts at the Graduate School of Art, Nihon University.

She creates and presents works that confront her own memories and express the hidden inner landscapes through her unique sense of color.

Recent exhibitions include: Solo exhibition "La lumière" (2024, agnès b. Galerie Boutique, Tokyo), group exhibitions "'elective affinities' Part I" (2023, agnès b. Galerie Boutique, Tokyo), and "Tokyo Curiosity 2020 Shibuya" (2020, Bunkamura, Tokyo), among various other planned exhibitions.

Instagram: @mariko.ohya

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■OSAJI

In the Edo period, doctors serving daimyo and shoguns were called "Osaji" (literally "Honorable Spoon"), comparing their work of compounding medicine with a spoon. Now that skin is considered an important organ that governs the body's immunity, the role of skincare goes beyond just beauty. OSAJI aims to be a modern-day "Osaji," designing a lifestyle for maintaining healthy and beautiful skin.

We sincerely face each aspect of skin structure and function, and how it maintains health and beauty. We strive to keep ingredients that carry a risk of allergy to a minimum. We handle facial, body, hair, makeup, and fragrance products.

https://osaji.net

■ Inquiries regarding this matter

Please send any inquiries regarding this matter to the following email address.

Mail: kyoto@osaji.inc (Contact: Tsuda)