The "Yusai Dials" series

The "Yusai (悠彩) Dials" series is MINASE's new addition to the brand's JAPAN ART COLLECTION created in collaboration with contemporary artist Ms. Towa TAKAYA. Here, the Japanese character of 悠 ("yu") symbolizes the eternal and leisurely flow of time, and, unlike the linear experience of time, expresses the depth of time's eternal, gently circulating nature. Then, the Japanese character of 彩 ("sai") refers to the fluctuations and multi-layered nature of color itself. Colors that reflect light and take on different expressions depending on the viewing angle and environment represent the "aesthetics of fluctuation" brought about by time. The phenomenal "Yusai Dials" series reflects the depth of time through these fluctuations of light and color, enabling the experience of the invisible richness hidden within time itself. This "art of time" is complete when it is placed inside a watch case radiating the brilliance of MINASE's signature Sallaz polishing.

Using her own coloring materials, contemporary artist Ms. Towa TAKAYA layers delicate spectrums of colors onto surfaces, creating multi-layered pictorial spaces that fluctuate depending on the light, environment, and viewing position. For Ms. Takaya, who expresses "time" and "phenomena" in her work, this collaboration with MINASE stimulates her creative passions. Through her innovative approach of hand-painting each dial using the same techniques and coloring materials as in her regular creative activities, she has created a world where the "art of time" and these watches co-create. This "Yusai Dials" series is a new addition to the MINASE brand's JAPAN ART COLLECTION, showcasing the wonders of Japanese traditional crafts and contemporary art to the world. Marking the 20th anniversary of the MINASE brand, MINASE breaks new ground in craftsmanship that will be celebrated for 100 years.

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Artist: Towa TAKAYA

Painter and contemporary artist. Born in Tokyo in 1992. After completing a Foundation Degree at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, she graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London, with a degree in Fine Art. She is currently based in Tokyo. Since 2022, she has been conducting collaborative research with Shiseido on painting techniques using cosmetic ingredients. She presented the research exhibition "Inversing Pictorial Space using Cosmetic Ingredients - A Collaborative Study on Oil Paintings" and, in 2024, published a co-authored paper "Classification of Painting Techniques across Painting Types" in The Journal of the Society for Art and Science. She creates her own paints from soil, plants, and cosmetic ingredients native to the regions that she visits for research and overlays a delicate spectrum of colors using her own colorants onto various surfaces. Through this creative process, which creates a multi-layered pictorial space that fluctuates depending on the light, environment, and viewing position, she explores the possibilities of contemporary painting through the medium of physicality and perception.

Her major solo exhibitions include "Being and transfiguration beyond nothingness" (Aster Curator Museum, Kanazawa, 2025), "Phenomena of the infinite" (Ginza Mitsukoshi, Tokyo, 2025), "It calls: shades of innocence" (Lurf Gallery, Tokyo, 2024), and "Joy after all" (at a governmental office, 2024-2025). Her participation in group exhibitions and art festivals includes "Summer 2025" (Kamakura Gallery, Kanagawa), "Summer Show 2024" (Redcar, U.K.), "Chroma Distance" (Pola Museum Annex, Tokyo, 2023), "Connecting Dots" (Berlin, Germany, 2023), and "Japan Annual-International Art Festival, Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai" (Yumeshima, Osaka, 2025). She has also participated in numerous art fairs both in Japan and abroad, including Tokyo Gendai, Art Fair Tokyo, Kiaf Seoul, ASYAAF, and Art Fair Beppu. Her work is also included in numerous corporate collections, including at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University. In 2009, her work was selected for the Kokuten exhibition.

A message from Ms. Towa TAKAYA

This collaboration with MINASE was realized based on the concept of creating a watch that enables experiencing the universal cycle of time itself. The dials feature a gradation of layered colors and the delicate sparkle of pearls to create a floating sensation, revealing a pictorial space with mysterious depth that transforms alongside the environment. The new pieces that I have created for the JAPAN ART COLLECTION span Eastern and Western aesthetics and were inspired by Japan's unique culture, stylistic beauty, and craft sensibilities. With MINASE's full cooperation, I spent about a year researching methods of expression. This series combines the "materiality" and "generation of time and space" that I have pursued as an artist with MINASE's exceptional craftsmanship and the aesthetics that seek to maximize the potential of "watches," as a foundation of the JAPAN ART COLLECTION. It is with a hope that the smallest pieces created through this collaboration will continue to keep time, shimmering and shining with the daily lives of those who own them, accompanying their lives.

New Product Story

Transforming the value of time into art

I clearly remember the first time I met Ms. Towa TAKAYA and the impact that I felt when she described her creative vision as "a primitive time that we have almost forgotten, a time that each of us inherently possesses." Rather than simply creating a dial as a work of art, I wanted Ms. Takaya to reconstruct the value of the watch itself through her own ideas and sensibilities. I was convinced that her work would bring a new vision to the JAPAN ART COLLECTION series, which MINASE has been creating together with master artisans. This collaboration came about because Ms. Takaya resonated with the case structure of MINASE's WINDOWS and DIVIDO models, which express the uniquely Japanese concept of "ma" (a spatial-temporal interval or pause integral to Japanese aesthetics ) as a design philosophy. The dials of the MINASE watches that you see here take on different expressions depending on the angle from which you view them, bringing ever-changing emotions to people's hearts. Mechanical watches, for which gears trace the flow of time through the universe, can re-awaken the value of time that each individual possesses. We hope that this thinking will awaken the sense of time etched in your memories.

Mr. Tsuyoshi SUZUKI, President of MINASE