Featured Artist

Shuto Okayasu – Ridgewood, NY
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Okayasu received his B.A. from Tokyo Zokei University in 2014. While attending
university, he spent a year working as a painting assistant at Kaikai Kiki, Takashi
Murakami’s studio. Okayasu exhibited his work at several galleries in Japan after
graduating, before moving to New York in 2015 to pursue more opportunities as a global
artist.

Okayasu’s current work is a record of the strange and beautiful world he experiences
daily, and the often unpredictable aspects of everyday life he encounters, particularly in
New York City. He incorporates photorealistic elements into his work through his own
lens, often manipulating scenes to emphasize the intertwining of reality and unreality.
Oyakasu’s paintings demonstrate how perception and imagination play into our daily
experiences.

Okayasu finds inspiration in techniques used in Hip Hop culture that call on a variety of
sounds to create something new. His own work takes the form of a sort of
patchwork of elements of his everyday life, often using his phone as a reference tool for
incorporating realism into his work. Okayasu’s techniques and style change slightly from one work to the next as he attempts to represent both realistic and imagined aspects of his surroundings. He draws on elements of abstract painting, Japanese painting, and cartoons – a stylistic choice that lends itself to capturing the bizarre and alluring aspects of his daily encounters.