Akashi’s influences range from pioneering Asian artists such as Xu Bing, Park Seo-Bo, to Western artists such as Christopher Wool, Cy Twombly, and also from the myriad of cultural inspirations of his nomadic lifestyle.

He recently has been selected to represent Belgium at the 9th Beijing Biennale in 2022 at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC). He exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art of Algiers (MaMA) and at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) alongside Ai Weiwei and Jenny Holzer. His artworks are in royal families and in private collections worldwide and have been featured in international publications such as the Guggenheim, MoMA, RollingStone, Juxtapoz and Blouin Artinfo.

He received the special prize Open (MOCA Italia) at the Venice Arsenale in 2017, the Excellence Award at the Nanjing International Art Festival in 2015, the Major International Public Art Project by the Palo Alto Public Art Commission in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Hong Kong Human Rights Arts Prize in 2015.

He currently lives and works between Barcelona, Brussels and Hong Kong.

A BELGIAN NOMADIC ARTIST WITH ASIAN PSEUDONYM AND A UNIQUE IDENTITY

Fascinated by the cultural complexity and aesthetics of Asia, Phil Akashi carved out a unique artistic identity. He first kept his first name Phil as his authentic roots. He then chose the Japanese pseudonym Akashi meaning “bright stone” to express his strong passion for the multifaceted Japanese culture. He also enriched his identity with a Chinese name "涛程" meaning "big wave journey" to integrate his nomadic approach to life and he intentionally reversed the two characters to experiment with the structure of the Chinese language.

Along with his unique Chinese name, strong Japanese pseudonym and authentic Western background, Phil Akashi plays with paradoxes and shares how he views the world as a trans-cultural element. s

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