William Monk Solo Exibition: Noon Day Night
Jun 30, 2026 at 4:00pm ~ Aug 16, 2026 at 8:00pm
Pace will present Noon Day Night, an exhibition of paintings by William Monk, at its Tokyo gallery from June 30 through August 16. Marking the artist’s first solo show in Japan, Noon Day Night will feature new and recent works from Monk’s ongoing series exploring liminality and the metaphysical.
Drawing inspiration from an array of sources, including classic cinema and psychedelic rock, as well as lived experiences and images that accumulate in his subconscious, Monk paints compositions that occupy a surreal terrain of semi- abstraction. Evocative, vibrant, and often mysterious, his paintings are rooted in the rich art historical traditions of the medium. His recurring Sentinel figure—a guide poised at the threshold between worlds—finds a poetic resonance in Japan, echoing the Buddhist notion of higan, or the other shore, and the cycle of death and rebirth and the attainment of Nirvana. This crossing over or going beyond is seen in Monk’s extensive series, in which he develops his otherworldly forms with each iteration. Repetition, he explains, “forces you to look for the variation. It’s like a fractal.”
This exhibition takes its title from the meteorological phenomenon by which the sky, during the middle of the day, darkens dramatically from severe storms, volcanic ash and other particulates, or solar eclipses, cultivating an atmosphere of strange timelessness. A sense of striking, illogical ambiguity cuts across the series included in the show, in which landscapes and architectural elements are neither totally real nor imagined. Holistically, they suggest what French anthropologist Marc Augé termed “non-place,” or an anthropological space where human relationships, histories, and identities are erased. Painted between 2021 and 2026 in London and New York, these works stem from a “non-place,” in a sense, even in their creation.
Schedule:
Opening Hours (Closed Monday): 11am – 8pm
Reservation Hours:
Sundays: 6pm – 8pm
Tuesday – Saturday: 7pm – 8pm
Information
Start: Jun 30th 2026 at 4:00pm
End: Aug 16th 2026 at 8:00pm
Pace Gallery Azabudai Hills Garden Plaza-A, 1F, 2F
5-8-1 Toranomon, Minato-ku
