Bringing a burst of childlike wonder and pure ‘Ai’ (love) to Marriott Moments Luxuriant Expo 2025, Japanese artist and celebrity Fumiya Sankai showcases his signature Hum Art in a weekend exhibit.
In this exhibition at Marriott in collaboration with Themes & Motifs and One Gallery, Hum Art uses his distinct style of painting. This is to encapsulate feelings of love, joy, and childlike wonder. He uses his raw execution of aesthetics to visualize the innocence strokes of youth. It is brave, somewhat reckless, and not a care in the world of what people would think.
A father’s lasting influence.
His style is deeply inspired by early memories of his father sketching hand-drawn posters of the products that they sell in their family-owned business. Most people would simply print posters for convenience, but his father would always prefer hand-drawn versions. This influence can be seen in his works, as he would often fuse images and text in his body of work. It almost looks like those hippie murals from the 90’s that advocate peace, love, and personal freedom, except his work only focuses on one color as opposed to those colorful murals from the 90’s.
The beauty of one color.
Hum Art is admittedly colorblind, and this plays a huge role in the general aesthetics of his work. Using a singular color provides an element of peaceful balance in contrast to his crowded sea of etchings, framing his work into a singular image when viewed from afar. And as his audience would speculate deeper into the details, they could easily see small narratives and hidden words scattered around an almost abstracted image.
These are words of positivity that he lives by, and he uses his art as a vehicle to carry these messages across. He would draw his favorite food, ice cream, together with the Japanese word for Ai (love), to give a wordplay that stems from two different languages. Perhaps this is where the heart of his work lies, in the belief that language may be a barrier that separates us from each other, but art and emotions are the ultimate universal forces that bind us together.
The largest work in the show is a painting of a jeepney. He painted this on the spot in the middle of the pop-up art gallery to capture the immediate intensity of his emotions and simulate a live painting performance. This work is filled with his signature elements, such as words and images that symbolize his love for the two nations that are very close to his heart, Japan and the Philippines.
The Philippines – Japan Jeepney
Different iconographies, like the Philippine Eagle and Mount Fuji, are strewn all around the canvas, like a flowing sea of pink graffiti. This massive painting materializes a visual connective tissue between two different cultures. Since a jeepney is also a primary means of transportation that’s meant to carry a group of people and not a single person, this work implies the importance of unity and how it is contained in a laid-back ride towards a future with no hate and conflict, just a beautiful paradise of love, faith, and freedom. He is deeply inspired by the purity and innocence of a child’s soul, and he mimics their sense of wonder in his art.
He believes that we should learn from their uncorrupted minds. It’s exactly what we need in a world of grownups who are being controlled by desires for money, fame, and power. Like the general ambiguity in his body of work, his name also has a concordant myriad of meanings. It can be the act of humming to a wonderful tune, enjoying the beauty of the world, just chilling out. Or the humility of someone who has reached heights of success. It can mean so many things, and perhaps that’s how we are defined as humans—fragile, complex creatures. Yet it’s the simple joys that always bring us back to the warm embrace of home.
Catch Fumiya Sankai’s art exhibit in Marriott Moments Luxuriant Expo 2025 at the MGBX Exhibition Hall, Marriott Grand Ballroom on July 26 & 27, 2025. Co-produced by Marriott Bonvoy, Themes & Motifs, and Spotlight Couronne Internationale. Inspirations.ph is a media partner.
