Sea View is pleased to present 果てしない Boundless, a solo exhibition of new works by Yu Kobayashi (b. 1957, Aichi, JP). 

Kobayashi is an artist whose practice is indistinguishable from the rhythms of her daily life and movements. From her seaside home and studio in Shizuoka, across from the sacred vistas of Mount Fuji, Kobayashi regularly journals her dynamic physical regimen and dreams rooted in unbridled movement and play. From swimming in the ocean every morning, to trampolining and gymnastics, to growing and cooking much of the food she eats, the artist’s lifestyle embraces a flow-state structure through which her work unfolds intuitively and in flux with the natural environment.

Often painted outdoors on the ground unstretched, Kobayashi’s works are marked by their unique impasto– swift calligraphic bands of color that are liable to be dusted by the wind and sand of the nearby Pacific. The loose canvas becomes both surface and field of action. Akin to the visceral awareness of moving through water or on a trampoline, Kobayashi employs her entire body to produce sweeping, continuous gestures that extend beyond the edges of the support. Permeating these layered brushstrokes is Kobayashi’s innate appreciation for nature, movement, and their creative communion. Inspired by the surrounding volcanic landscape, Kobayashi responds to the boundary between chance and control, the build-up and break-down of both material and nature.

Accompanying this series of paintings is a selection of Kobayashi’s sculptures of ceramic and Japanese cedar. In her ceramic works, Kobayashi draws on the organic forms of volcanoes and sprouting seeds, fired with richly-textured and unglazed clay. Her functional sculptures, carved from driftwood and cedar, undergo a Kakishibu lacquering process using naturally fermented persimmon tannins. In an earthy palette dappled with the semi-abstract cadence of light, water, and flora, this body of work refuses hard edges, sharp lines, or any sense of strict determinancy– evoking the ebb and flow of a life and practice existing wholeheartedly in tandem.

Yu Kobayashi (b. 1957, Aichi, JP) lives and works in Shizuoka, Japan. Kobayashi has held recent solo and two person exhibitions at Sea View, Los Angeles, CA (2025); Colony Minami Aoyama, Tokyo, JP (2023); and Curator’s Cube, Tokyo, JP (2022). Recent group exhibitions include ATLA, Los Angeles, CA (2026); OG Gallery, Istanbul, TR (2025); Salmon Creek Farm, Albion, CA (2024); Andrea Zittel’s A-Z West, Joshua Tree, CA (2024); Curator’s Cube, Tokyo, JP (2023); and Mother Dictionary, Tokyo, JP (2022). Kobayashi is represented by Mother Dictionary, Tokyo, JP and Sea View, Los Angeles, CA.