Manami Higashi / 東 麻 奈美

Born in 1988, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan

Manami Higashi graduated from the Department of Painting, Faculty of Art, Joshibi University of Art and Design in 2011, specializing in Western painting, and completed her Master’s degree in Fine Arts at Joshibi University Graduate School in 2013.

Her work centers on sub-culture characters and the visualization of time. When these “2D” characters are given three-dimensional form as models, they become idols cherished and admired by viewers. In her practice, she imparts a sense of rotation to these figures, condensing continuous motion onto a single canvas—making the fourth dimension of time visible in a painting.
She reflects on early 20th-century painters who sought to represent movement and time during the rapid development of industrial and mechanical civilization, applying similar oil painting techniques to contemporary characters. This creative process evokes a cyclical and connective sense, akin to the turning of time itself. By embedding the concept of rotation—symbolizing physical motion, time, and dimensionality—into her character models, her work becomes a medium that bridges reality and imagination, as well as time and form.