'Silent Guardians' Explores Protection, Family and Quiet Return
Not everything that protects us stands at the gate. Some guardians stay quietly by our side.
From January 30 to March 7, LINSEED presents Silent Guardians, a solo exhibition by Japanese artist Naoki Koide on Wuyuan Road. Moving fluidly between sculpture and painting, Koide's practice unfolds slowly, quietly circling themes of family, companionship, and return. His works do not narrate these ideas directly; instead, they hold them gently, allowing emotion to surface through form, texture, and subtle humor.
At the heart of the exhibition stands the recurring figure of the "komainu," the paired guardian lions traditionally found at Japanese temples and shrines. For Koide, these figures shift from cultural symbol to personal metaphor.
Once the one being protected, the artist now inhabits the role of protector. The komainu become vessels for this transition, embodying protection, responsibility, and the quiet uncertainty of parenthood. Placed throughout the gallery almost casually, they wait to be discovered – sometimes around a corner, sometimes resting quietly in plain sight. Their surfaces retain the marks of the artist's hands: pressed clay, visible textures, unfinished warmth. Protection here is not monumental – it is intimate.
Recent works created during Koide's residency in Jingdezhen introduce a renewed engagement with painting. Blue-and-white porcelain techniques echo his early experiences with oil on canvas, reopening a dialogue between surface and volume. Muted pastel tones, flattened grey fields, and delicately rendered floral motifs coexist with subtly humorous figures. Nothing overwhelms the space; everything breathes. Forms rest beside one another in quiet relation.
Throughout the exhibition, "return" emerges not as nostalgia, but as re-grounding. Sculptures such as "Squid Head" stand like relics from an invented history, suggesting memory without belonging to any fixed past. Themes of family are no longer illustrated directly; instead, they are built into structure: steady, enduring, present.
In Silent Guardians, Koide offers neither spectacle nor resolution. Through tenderness and wit, he creates space for protection without authority, for love without declaration, for presence without noise.
Date: January 30-March 7 (Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-6pm)
Venue: LINSEED
Address: No.4, Lane 165, Wuyuan Rd 五原路165弄4号
*By invitation and appointment only. Please scan the QR code below to make an appointment.
