gemi

gemi (げみ, b. 1989, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan) is an illustrator based in Tokyo. A graduate of the Japanese Painting course at Kyoto University of Art and Design (now Kyoto University of the Arts), gemi began working as an illustrator directly after graduating and has since drawn more than 400 book jackets, alongside textbook, advertising and CD artwork.

The pictures are quiet and pale in tone, usually built around a single figure in a landscape and the light that falls across it. Weather and the hour of the day carry much of the feeling; the first solo exhibition, in 2016, was titled Ame no Hanataba (A Bouquet of Rain). Commissions include the cover of Tokyo Shoseki's Atarashii Kokugo school textbook, the Japanese Cabinet Office's television spot Kokoro no Barrier-Free, a cherry-blossom edition of the Oi Ocha tea range, and cards for the Pokémon Trading Card Game and Pokémon TCG Pocket. In 2024 the magazine Illustration devoted a thirty-page feature to gemi's work and carried a new cover illustration.

Recent exhibitions, held at The Artcomplex Center of Tokyo, have explored how a digital palette translates into physical objects, most recently through UV-printed works that give the images a tactile surface. gemi's work is presented in Europe by Tokiol.

Selected exhibitions

2026 Utsutsu no Soko de, solo exhibition, The Artcomplex Center of Tokyo, Tokyo
2025 Nijinda Iro o Tabanete, solo exhibition, The Artcomplex Center of Tokyo, Tokyo
2021 Kishikan no Shimiru Ashiato, solo exhibition, The Artcomplex Center of Tokyo, Tokyo

Publications

Gemi Artworks, Genkosha, 2017
Illustration No. 244 (cover and feature), Genkosha, 2024