Manabu Kosaka is a contemporary artist working exclusively with paper, producing each work entirely by hand.

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His practice begins with familiar motifs, yet these are never treated as subjects for reproduction. Instead, they serve as points of departure for examining the unseen relationship between an object and human perception.

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The time required for each work varies significantly—some are completed within weeks, while others take several months. Regardless of scale or duration, each piece holds a concentrated presence that subtly disrupts the viewer’s assumptions about material, form, and recognition.

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For Kosaka, making is both an act of fabrication and an act of bringing something into existence. Through this process, he constructs and makes visible his own relationship with the motif.

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Making is not merely a means of expression, but a process of entering into and deepening that relationship. The work emerges as its accumulation.

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His process is grounded in repetition and precision, yet it is not driven by pre-determined design. Instead, it unfolds as a gradual approach toward the subject—an accumulation of encounters that eventually takes form.

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Through this practice, Kosaka addresses a fundamental question: what does it mean for something to exist beyond its material condition, and how is such existence recognized?