b. 1969
Japanese artist Izumi Kato was born in the Shimane prefecture of Japan in 1969. He attended Musashino Art University and graduated from the Department of Oil Painting in 1992. Kato works across painting, sculpture and installation to create figures that inhabit a space between the physical and spiritual realms. His figures have uncanny faces, anonymous silhouettes, elongated limbs and bulbous heads. His magical creatures evoke totems and the animist belief that a spiritual force runs through the living and mineral worlds. He currently lives and works across Tokyo and Hong Kong.
His work is housed in the public collections of the Aranya Art Center, China; Bernard Buffet Museum, Japan; Colección SOLO, Madrid; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japigozzi Collection, Geneva; K11, Hong Kong; Long Museum, Shanghai; Longlati Foundation, Hong Kong; Miniature Museum, Den Haag; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi and Zhiguan Museum of Fine Art, Beijing among others.
How Izumi Kato’s curious creatures found fame in LA
