AYA TAKANO

Early Years

Aya Takano was born in 1976 in Saitama, Japan. As a child, she read widely: her father’s books about geology and nature, scientific magazines, sci-fi novels, comic books (notably Osamu Tezuka) and art books—reading these made her realise [she wanted to be a painter][YT]. Although her parents wanted her to go to university, she wasn’t keen, choosing art college instead, graduating from Tama Art University in Tokyo in 2000. After graduation, she worked for Nintendo, designing packages, but didn’t find the job interesting or creative, so went to work as Takashi Murakami’s assistant. Murakami encouraged Takano to paint on canvas for the first time and also introduced her to galleries outside Japan, which kickstarted her career.

Aya Takano: Artworks

The ethereal, slender figures in Takano’s figurative artworks take viewers on an exploration of youth, fantasy and reality, culture and nature. The spaces she creates exist between the real and the imagined, combining different realms to tell visually striking stories using bright colours and delicate line work.

• Takano’s early work was sci-fi-influenced: for example, her 2002 book Spaceship EE follows a young girl called Noshi, who wants to travel to the stars but gets lost. Little Stars of a City Child (2006) depicts a small girl hugging stuffed animals and cushions against the backdrop of a neon-lit city.
• Takano was profoundly affected by the Tōhoku earthquake in 2001, after which her artistic practice became more focused on our relationship with nature. The giant, six-metre painting May All Things Dissolve in the Ocean of Bliss (2014) shows stylised human figures coexisting with animals and seal life at the ocean’s edge.
• In Africa, a Person Lives a Life Being One With a Cow (2025) depicts a young female figure lying on a cow’s back, surrounded by sheep, a cat and a bird. The animals appear to be smiling while lush leaves and flowers fill the background of the painting. Takano said of the painting: “I believe that, once, in various parts of the Earth, humans, animals, and plants lived in close interdependence, both in the physical and the spiritual sense, deeply and inseparably connected.”

Aya Takano: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• how deep how far we can go, Perrotin, Los Angeles (2025)
• Longer Than the Myth of our Galaxy alternative future, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo (2024)
• New Myth, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2023)
• thank you world, you now look a little bit like a wonderland, Perrotin, Shanghai (2022)
• beginning, liminal, ego, Perrotin, Hong Kong (2021)
• Let’s make the universe a better place, Perrotin, Seoul (2020)
• The Jelly Civilisation Chronicle, Galerie Perrotin, Paris (2017)
• The Ocean Inside, The Flowers Inside, Johyun Gallery, Busan (2015)
• May All Things Dissolve in the Ocean of Bliss, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo (2014)
• Stars, flowers and honeynight, SieboldHuis, Leiden (2011)
• Reintegrating World, Skarstedt Gallery, New York (2009)
• City Dog, Parco Gallery, Tokyo (2006) (and touring)
• Spaceship EE, nanogalerie, Paris (2002)
• Shu Wa Kimaseri, shop33, Tokyo (1997)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Cute, Somerset House, London (2024)
• Kaleidoscopes: Contemporary Portraiture, Perrotin, Hong Kong (2020)
• Murakami by Murakami, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2017)
• The Very Bottom of the Air, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo (2009)
• Kawaii! Japan Now, Fundacion Juan Miro, Barcelona (2007)
• Japan Pop, Helsinki Museum of Art (2005)
• The Japanese Experience—Inevitable, Das Museum der Moderne Salzburg (2002)
• Superflat (curated by Takashi Murakami), Parco Gallery, Tokyo (2000)
• Ero Pop Christmas, NADiff, Tokyo (1998)

Further Reading

• Aya Takano’s Instagram
• Artist profile page at Perrotin
• Artist profile page at Christie’s
• Interview in Art Majeur magazine (2025)
• 2011 documentary by Helene Sevaux

Aya Takano FAQs

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