CROSS OVER was established in August 2017 by PEDDY POT (Yashiro Hiroyuki), who at the time was active in creating and exhibiting graphic art at Southeast Asian and East Asian international art exhibitions and art fairs. He established the new art group separate from the exhibitions he had been participating in with the goal of making exhibiting art in foreign countries, which is often seen as difficult, more accessible to all kinds of artists.

As an international art exhibition group mainly active in Asian countries, CROSS OVER gathers different participants including painters, graphic designers, dancers, and photographers for every exhibition, and to date have had over 400 participating artists.

The name CROSS OVER comes from our desire for each individual to become aware of new perspectives and values through interactions with artworks of various styles as well as different guests at our international exhibitions, and to dig deeper into these new findings.

The fact that it is geographically easy to travel between these countries and Japan contributes to why we are mainly active in Asia, but the biggest reason is that PEDDY POT had experiences that led him to strongly feel that he wanted to be more active in this region. He was overwhelmed by a speed of development that currently can’t be experienced in Japan, and also experienced numerous new environments he never knew about through interacting with the local art spaces, artists, and audiences of each of the many Asian countries he visited.

We would like artists to realize that they can be active in other countries and regions instead of thinking that their current surroundings are everything, and grow beyond their current environment through our exhibitions. We would like to be a little push to expand the scope of their future activities.

In addition, there are an increasing number of people in Asian countries that are starting to hold interest in Japanese art through their knowledge of Japanese culture. By having locals build up their interest and helping them realize that there are still many more exciting artists and creators in Japan, we believe they can learn about us as well as a part of Japan through having them visit our exhibitions.

We have held our own exhibitions in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Myanmar, but we have also been expanding our activities by participating and exhibiting as CROSS OVER in an international art fair in Taiwan as well as holding exhibitions in Europe in countries like France.

We also have members that have gained opportunities to exhibit in other international exhibitions through their exhibitions with CROSS OVER. Our scope of activities have been increasing in ways we initially never even thought about.

CROSS OVER does not want to be satisfied with just holding exhibitions overseas or blindly glorify foreign environments. Ultimately we aim to be a helping hand for artists to be able to reflect on their current environment and status through exhibiting their art, and deepen their thinking on their overall lifestyle and future goals even beyond just their creative work.

We would like to give something back, no matter how small, to our artists and visitors through our exhibitions and future activities.

Please look forward to our future activities.