色切／shikiri

"Dividing and creating space through colors"

“I use colors as three-dimensional elements, like layers, in order to create spaces,
not as a finishing touch applied to surfaces.”
— emmanuelle moureaux

色切／shikiri is an original concept I developed and coined in 2003 to define the use of color as a three-dimensional element to divide and create space.

In 1995, during my first visit to Tokyo as an architecture student, I was deeply moved by the colors overflowing through the city. Store signs, electrical cables, fragments of blue sky between buildings — countless colors appeared to me as three-dimensional layers, creating extraordinary depth and density.
I felt an intense emotion seeing these colors, and in that moment, I decided to move to Tokyo. After receiving my French architect license in 1996, I moved from France to Tokyo.

This experience fundamentally changed the way I understood color and led me to develop 色切／shikiri in 2003.
The term combines the Japanese words shiki (色, “color”) and shikiri (仕切り, “dividing space”). It expresses my concept of dividing and creating space with color.

I use colors as three-dimensional elements, like layers, in order to create spaces — not as a finishing touch applied to surfaces.

Inspired by traditional Japanese spatial elements such as sliding screens, I began by exploring “surface” shikiri, gradually developing color into thinner elements — “line” shikiri. Beyond surfaces and lines, my exploration of the form of color expanded into motifs drawn from nature — such as flowers, branches, and thorns — as well as letters, numbers, and silhouettes. Works such as eda (2010), composed of branch-like three-dimensional modules, bloom bloom bloom (2012), formed by interlocking floral elements, and 100 colors no.18 “Forest of Numbers” (2017), where thousands of colored numbers fill the space, reflect this continuing exploration of the form of color.

My exploration of the form of color has been a journey across different scales, from a small art piece to architecture.

In 2013, I unveiled the first 100 colors installation in Tokyo to mark the 10th anniversary of my studio. The installation presented a full spectrum of one hundred colors, expressing the emotion I had felt when encountering the colors and layers of Tokyo.
This became the beginning of 100 colors, a chromatic system that has since unfolded through installations and other forms around the world.

I want to give emotion through colors, whether through architecture or art.
Through my work, I want people to see colors, touch colors, and feel colors with their entire body and senses.

Color creates space, but it also creates emotion.

色切／shikiri
emmanuelle moureaux
2003