Colour of Optimism
Solo show at the Exhibitionist Hotel
Nov 2025–Jan 2026
Art that invites you to pause and reconnect
What is the colour of optimism? Is it something you can measure, like an academic might, in shades of blue, red, or green, or is it something you feel, something that shifts with your own emotional landscape?
In Colour of Optimism exhibition, London-based Japanese artist June Mineyama-Smithson (MAMIMU) explores optimism as both an emotion and a strategy for living. Drawing inspiration from neuroscience, academic research, and life itself, her work invites viewers to pause, breathe, and reconnect with the resilient, playful side of being human.
Four collections to explore colour, emotions, and life
The exhibition brings together four collections:
Collection 01The Art of Reclaiming Focus
A visual meditation on attention in an age of distraction, these paintings invite you to take a moment for yourself.
Collection 03Art as Medicine
a series created for the artist’s London Art Fair panel with neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart and artist Dr. Charley Peters, this series celebrates the growing connection between art and wellbeing.
Collection 02Progress Is Not a Straight Line
Combining desire, insecurity, and determination, these works empower viewers to embrace imperfection and persistence.
Collection 04According to the Academics
An academic paper found that blue, red, and green paintings sell best at auctions. Should we feel cheerful about that? But which shades and textures? This series wittily challenges the data.
“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future.”
— Noam Chomsky
Echoing Noam Chomsky’s idea that “Optimism is a strategy for making a better future.” the artist sees optimism not as naïve positivity, but as grit; a determined mindset that helps us find light through uncertainty.
Her hard-edge paintings are a quest for perfection in an imperfect world: from afar, lines appear flawless; up close, they reveal traces of human struggle and determination. Honest, playful, unapologetically human.