Jeu./ Minimalism

Jeu. is an artistic practice developed by architect Hideaki Nishimura and artist Yumi Toyama. Drawing on their backgrounds in architecture, mathematics, painting, and the luxury fashion and beauty industries, they construct conditions through which space acquires form.

Hideaki Nishimura is a first-class licensed architect in Japan. His academic and professional experience in Italy and France spans architecture, urban design, land art, and branding.

After studying oil painting and silverpoint drawing, Yumi Toyama worked in Paris as a colourist and nail artist, contributing to fashion and beauty projects for VOGUE, CHANEL, DIOR and CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN, while independently studying mathematics and geometric construction.

The name Jeu.—“play” in French—carries a twofold resonance: a mode of observation, reflection and interpretation that unfolds through rules, moves and their consequences, and the slight clearance within a structure. These senses converge in Jeu.’s logic: a game of spatial reasoning and manoeuvre.

At the core of Jeu. lies Architectonic Painting, a geometrically conceived, hand-executed construction that transcends pictorial flatness and extends into space as a small architecture. The wider body of work includes spatial installations, animation, furniture and architectural projects, and has been presented in Japan and internationally.