Modern Japanese Artists

Discover art from leading modern Japanese artists. Our collection is ever-evolving with exciting new art, ranging from prints to paintings to sculptures, to much more. Whether you’re looking for something new, vibrant and abstract, or you’re after a more refined, classical and figurative piece, our collection of work from Japanese artists has been expertly curated for you to find the perfect new piece to purchase for your home.

Classic and Contemporary Japanese Artists

Throughout its long and enduring history, Japanese art has remained unique in its unparalleled ability to tell stories and its strong aesthetic identity. Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa is one of the most famous Japanese artworks in the world and woodblock prints remain quintessentially Japanese, often depicting scenes of nature interspersed with scenes of Japanese daily life.

Today, modern Japanese artists are creating pieces that are as lively and exciting as ever. Led by the likes of Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami, contemporary Japanese artists are pioneering some of the most ground-breaking and thought-provoking art of recent times. From Kusma’s iconic dot paintings and worldwide installations to Murakami’s ‘superflat’ art movement, contemporary Japanese artists have shown work everywhere, from the walls of Tate Modern to Louis Vuitton handbags and Kanye West’s album cover.

Takashi Murakami

Superflat art emerged from Murakami’s 2001 exhibition, Superflat. Exploring all aspects of Japanese culture, from traditional painting to anime, from highbrow to lowbrow, the name ‘superflat’ draws from the flatness of art and the emptiness of consumer culture. Takashi’s style has pioneered one of the most famous and recognisable postmodern art movements of recent times. In the last twenty years, the playful appearance and cartoon motifs that characterise superflat art have been adopted by artists worldwide.

Chiho Aoshima

Artist Chiho Aoshima is embedded into Japanese culture. This can be seen both through her collaborations with Takashi Murakami, as well as her own artwork’s deference to Japanese art historical forms – from traditional ukiyo-e art to contemporary manga and anime. This diversity of influence marks Aoshima as part of the Japanese Superflat movement, whose ‘flatness’ comes from the conflation, or merging, of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art as well as the ‘emptiness’ of mass culture.

Hiroshi Sato

Showing another approach to contemporary Japanese art is Hiroshi Sato. Unlike the dynamic nature of superflat art, Hiroshi focuses on portraying still and peaceful scenes by depicting solitary figures and their relationship to their environments. Reminiscent to Cezanne and various Impressionist painters, Hiroshi creates figurative paintings with obvious brushstrokes that at times resembles block-like marks. Demonstrating an extreme sensibility to light and shadow, Hiroshi’s paintings are atmospheric reflections of the everyday.