Clockwise from top left corner:
"Black Cat and Matryoshka" acrylic and watercolor on paper, 8" x 8", 2016;
"Black Cat and Magnolia" acrylic on canvas, 40" x 18", 2016;
Portrait of the Minako Ota;
"Koi Diptych" acrylic and silver leaf on panel, 20" x 48", 2012, in private collection;
"Evocation" acrylic on canvas, 51" x 31", 2014;
"The Sixth Sense" acrylic on canvas and handmade paper, 10" x 23", 2010, private collection;
"Cats Love" acrylic on paper, 12" x 8", 2017;
"Gangsters" 35" x 43", acrylic on canvas, 2016;
"Lordly" mixed media, 24" x 18", 2016, private collection
photographer: Masaki Nakamura
Born in Japan in 1965, I was trained in traditional Japanese painting at an art university in Tokyo. After graduating with a BA, I left Japan and began studying conservation of western paintings in the UK and the US and continued working in the field for 20 years, until I started painting full time in Moscow, Russia, in 2007. Currently I am planning to start a new base in Princeton, NJ, for my artistic activities as of summer in 2017. I have had exhibitions in Japan, Russia, the US and France.
For me, painting is an ever-changing life form. Through life experiences, you keep reinventing yourself and as you transform, your painting style transforms, too.
Since I left my native country 30 years ago, I have submerged myself in western cultures in the US and Europe, I have become a hybrid of Japanese and westerner. My paintings are a reflection of myself. I combine western painting techniques that I learned through painting conservation and traditional Japanese motifs that I grew up with.