Biography

Aya Takano
(Born 1976)

Aya Takano was born in Saitama, Japan in 1976. She graduated from the Tama Art Unitversity in Tokyo, and is a member of Takashi Murakami’s art production company Kaikai Kiki LLC that is based in Tokyo. Takano has become known for her paintings of wide-eyed androgynous figures that combine a contemporary stylization known in Japan as kawaii (roughly translated into English as cute) with references to ancient woodprints from the Edo period–spectacular polychrome prints which often depicted colorful images of the geishas, Kabuki actors and samurais that frequented urban pleasure districts at the time. Her paintings also reflect her curiosity with science fiction, drawing, manga and animation. Takano’s precision with line, her unique use of colors, and her ability to work quickly has led to comparisons with Hokusai, the painter and printmaker whose work The Great Wave is one of the most iconic images from 18th-century Japanese art.
Takano’s multifaceted artistic practice includes in addition to painting, illustration, manga, and science fiction writing.

Recent major exhibitions for Takano include solo shows at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin in Paris in 2008, the Musee d’Art Contemporain in Lyon in 2008 and the Parco Museum in Tokyo in 2006. In 2000, NADiff in Tokyo mounted a solo exhibition, Hot Banana Fudge, and notably, Takano was also included in the 2001 exhibition Superflat, shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California. Aya Takano lives and works in Japan.