The Shiro Oni Arts Center will be a central hub that holds our offices, studios, workshops, exhibitions, growing archive, and private housing for our visiting artists. Our goal is to create a modern multi-purpose space that works to revitalize necessary amenities for local people and international artists to gather and create work.
Studios will be ready in the Spring of 2025.
Founded in 1728 in the early Showa Period, this site is home to the original Kimenzan Sake Brewery’s Sohei Fujisaki headquarters. In 1973, the company rose to the top 10 sake producers in the Gunma/Saitama region. In 2013, the brewery closed its doors due to financial difficulties, and the 285-year-old brewery left the land where it had been established and moved to Nagatoro with a new corporation.
In 2014, when artist Chiaki Horikoshi received a civilian merit award from the Spanish government, the former site of the Sohei Fujisaki store was used for the award ceremony and exhibition, opening it to the public for the first time in decades. The land was then put on the market, but local businessman Masaaki Kanezawa acquired it to save it from development. Mr. Kanezawa, who used this place as a playground in his childhood, named it “Hyakunen no Mori Kanezawa Park”. The property was used for several years by the community, but the preservation and restoration of the building became an issue, and it was put up for sale again after Mr. Kanezawa’s passing.
At the beginning of 2025, Shiro Oni Studio acquired the historic Kanezawa Park in Onishi. We would like to personally thank the Kanezawa family for their trust and support in continuing the legacy of Kanezawa Park as the Shiro Oni Art Center.
Follow along on our Instagram page @shirooniresidency for renovation updates and residency news.
We hold our exhibitions in the Naga Kura at the Shiro Oni Art Center in Kanezawa Park. This building was originally used as a sake production facility in the 1700s.
Check out previous exhibitions under our exhibition archives page.
The Shiro Oni Art Center Workspace holds 9 individual artist studios, a woodshop, and our ceramic facilities. Each artist’s studio is unique, using repurposed wood and materials from Kanezawa Park. The Workspace also functions as a community workshop space where we hold various art-making classes such as ceramics, figure drawing, and hand-built crafts.
The Workspace is currently under construction and will be finished by Summer 2025.
