Colour of Optimism
Solo show at the Exhibitionist Hotel
Nov 2025–Jan 2026
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 02Progress Is Not a Straight Line
Combining desire, insecurity, and determination, these works empower viewers to embrace imperfection and persistence.
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 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.
About the artist
June Mineyama-Smithson is a Japanese artist based in London, UK.
Her work aims to evoke optimism in a chaotic, imperfect world. She believes that in challenging times, optimism drives hope and determination, inspiring action towards a brighter future.
She exhibited at Kensington + Chelsea Art Fringe Week 2025 and ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2024, selected by Will Gompertz, former BBC Arts Editor. Her interest in combining art and science to explore Optimum Optimism led to a collaboration with neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart, resulting in a series of moving image idents for ITV.
She uses bold colours and shapes as a universal language that everyone instinctively understands, regardless of age, gender, or nationality. The geometric rhythm in her work offers a sense of play and direction, reflecting the journey towards positive change.
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 the 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.
“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.