Susumu Kamijo exhibits at the Perrotin Gallery in Paris: a gentle interlude between flowers and animals.

The Perrotin Gallery in Paris presents the When I Think of You in Spring exhibition by Susumu Kamijo, running from April 25 to May 30, 2026. This marks the artist’s second showing at the venue, following The Sun Inside in 2023. Located in the Marais, the show invites visitors to encounter a suite of paintings alive with large flowers, fruits, birds, butterflies, and glimpses of landscapes. Here, painting does not aim to tell a particular story; it seeks to make shapes, colors, and balances come to exist. For the viewer, it’s an invitation to look differently, and to take time.

In the works of Susumu Kamijo, there is a calm, clearly legible universe, even when the forms remain free and intuitive. Flowers often take up a prominent place on the canvas. Animals also appear, such as parrots or a sailfish. In the background, a cloud, a horizon line, or a hill sometimes structures the image. The artist himself explains: "If I feel something is needed in that spot, I add a cloud, and that helps maintain balance in the composition." This remark helps illuminate his work: each element mainly serves to build the painting’s space, rather than to faithfully depict reality.

This exhibition also helps readers better understand what makes Susumu Kamijo's painting distinctive. Born in Japan in 1975, he has lived in the United States since adolescence. His work keeps a thread of abstraction even when he paints flowers or animals. The shapes are as important as the subjects. The large flowers, for instance, are not merely decorative. They open up the plane of the canvas and draw the eye. The artist even speaks of a movement like a big bang, a nebula. Behind this apparent simplicity, one also senses a more intimate meditation on time, beauty, and the fleeting nature of things.

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By visiting When I Think of You in Spring, you’ll find the experience rather contemplative. Susumu Kamijo suggests picking a single painting and giving it some time. It’s perhaps the best way to enter the exhibition, and also a nice way to pause before a painting and see what it reveals to you.

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