One night in Sapporo when white seagulls flew above the city like white crows, colorful birds in Soso cafe were celebrating the spring season. Atsushi Toyama Exhibition “And Your Bird Can Sing” had started.

This is Atsushi Toyama’s second exhibition at Soso following “Little Twelvetoes” in 2003. He is an illustrator who has started to gain attention in Europe while extending his working field. His works are unparalleled in the world and has continued to fascinate his fans year by year. This exhibition “And Your Bird Can Sing”, with his drawings of ‘birds’ is held in two venues; Soso in Sapporo and IID Gallary in Tokyo.

On the first day of the exhibit, May 14th, the venue was full of visitors who came to see his opening live performance. The event was standing room only. In the entrance, front space, right wall, left wall, and even in the small room behind, there were birds everywhere and mobiles were hung from the ceiling.

These birds were sometimes under the cover of a rainbow, and sometimes on an apple-shaped guitar. All the birds had individuality in their color, an object with, impression and expression, and it made us feel warm, fun, and bright. They were undoubtedly singing as if we heard the song from the drawings.

Atsushi’s live performance showed a part of the root of such warmness. What he prepared for the performance was 6 white and square canvases, colors, water, and a towel. He boldly started taking the colors and water on his hand, and directly put it into the canvas. Sometimes showing his cute smile, he repeated the work; took off a canvas one by one, put colors on it, took off colors from his hand by a towel, and hung it on the wall again.