Biography

Exhibitions

Selected Exhibitions

2003
Solo exhibition, Shirota Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2010
Solo exhibition, Yufuku Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (’11, ’12)
2012
Art Fair Tokyo, Japan (’13, ’21)

Takashimaya Department Store, Tokyo, Japan
2013
Collect, London, UK (’14, ’15)

TEFAF Maastricht, The Netherlands (’14, ’15, ’16, ’17, ’18, ’19, ’20, ’22)
2014
Art Stage Singapore, Singapore (’15, ’16, ’17)

Asia Week New York, USA

Resonances – Takafumi Asakura, Galerie Pierre Bonnefille, Paris, France

Art Miami, USA (’15, ’16, ’17, ’18, ’19 ’22)
2016
Spring Masters New York, USA

EAF Monaco, Monaco

Art Taipei, Taiwan
2017
TEFAF New York Spring, USA

Of Legends and Lore – Japanese Ink Paintings by Takafumi Asakura,

Serindia Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand
2018
Seattle Art Fair, USA (’19, ’22)

Takafumi Asakura, Taimei Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2019
Masterpiece London, London, UK (’22)

West Bund Art and Design, Shanghai, China (’20, ’22)
2020
Opening Ceremony, A Lighthouse called Kanata, Tokyo, Japan
2021
The Secret Show, A Lighthouse called Kanata, Tokyo, Japan

Nihonga Renaissance, A Lighthouse called Kanata, Tokyo, Japan

RE:OPENING CEREMONY, A Lighthouse called Kanata, Tokyo, Japan

The Armory Show, New York, USA

ART 021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, China
2022
A Lighthouse called Kanata New York Pop-Up, USA

Awards

2002　Nitten Japan Fine Arts Exhibition (selected every year since)
2003　Nisshun Fine Arts Exhibition (’04, ’05, ’06, ’07, ’08, ’09, ’10, ’11, ’12, ’13, ’14, ’15, ’16, ’17, ’18)
2010　Special Selection Award, Nitten Japan Fine Arts Exhibition (’12)
2013　Work awarded Special Selection, Nisshun Fine Arts Exhibition
2015　Juror, Nitten Japan Fine Arts Exhibition

Public Collections

Spencer Museum of Art – University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA
The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Centre – Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota, USA
The Kennedy Theatre, University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Honolulu, USA
Okamura Tenmangu Shrine, Yokohama, Japan
Osannomiya Hie Shrine, Yokohama, Japan
Takaotenjin Shrine, Hachioji, Japan
Jujusan Asakawa Kotohira Daigongen Shrine, Hachioji, Japan

Selected Commissions Works

Hotel The Mitsui Kyoto, Japan

朝倉隆文 Takafumi
Asakura Takafumi
Asakura

The Great Pine and the Ocean (2020) | Black ink on Japanese paper, mounted on 4 panel folding screen

H167 × W330 (cm)

PLAY VIDEO

Takafumi
Asakura

Profile

1978 Born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
2002 Tama Art University, MFA
Lives and works in Yokohama

01 Exhibitions More
02 Awards More
03 Public Collections More

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About
the ArtistAbout
the Artist

Takafumi Asakura (b. 1978 –) pours into his poetry in ink a zeitgeist for the 21st century, displaying technical virtuosity whilst experimenting with abstraction and the avant-garde, wielding but a single type of ink and brush to paint the most intricate of Nihonga-style paintings. Negative space is filled entirely with ancient calligraphy, whilst beacons of spiralling ink swirl and coalesce into mythical beasts, Shinto gods, and elements of nature.

Yet intricacy and technique are ancillary to whether an artist has the power to paint works that spellbind, enthrall, enrapture. Indeed, Asakura’s meticulous paintings are mesmerising poems rooted in Shinto scripture and the movements within his own soul, possessing the power to stop viewers in their tracks by the visceral strength of his brushstrokes interspersed with copious, painstaking detail.

One of the youngest painters to become a juror at the Nitten Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, Takafumi Asakura’s story has only just begun, with works already acquired by 8 public collections in both Japan and the United States, and with a growing recognition in artistic circles the world over.