Takashi Murakami

Artist b.1962 (JAP)

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. Drawing from traditional Japanese painting, scient finction, anime, and the global art market, Takashi Murakami creates paintings, sculptures, and films inhabited by replicate motifs and mutating characters of his creation. His wide-ranging work represents an intersection of pop culture, history, and fine art. It has been noted for its use of color, incorporation of motifs from Japanese traditional and popular culture, flat/glossy surfaces, and content that could be described at once as "pretty", "psychedelic", or "satirical". Among his best known recurring motifs are smiling flowers, iconic characters, mushrooms, skulls, Buddhist iconography, and the sexual complexes of otaku culture. Murakami is one of the most acclaimed artists from the postwar and renewed as a pop icon.