Shu Okamoto

Born in Nara, Japan in 1995. Okamoto received an MFA in Japanese Painting from the Graduate School of Fine Arts at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2020. Grounded in the principles of observation and drawing cultivated through his training in Nihonga, he explores methods of translating secondary sources—such as digital images and existing visual materials—into painting. His practice focuses particularly on fusuma (sliding door paintings) and
paintings-within-paintings (gachūga), examining the relationship between original and reproduced images. Selected exhibitions include HAPPY (with Shinya Higashi and Yuto Yonemura) at COHJU Contemporary Art, Kyoto (2024). He received the Grand Prize at the Vortic Art Prize at Untitled Art Miami Beach 2024, and was awarded the Honorable Mention Prize and the Ohara Museum of Art Prize at VOCA Exhibition 2021.