Tohru Kanayama

Tohru Kanayama was born in 1966 in Tokyo, Japan. His father was a professor of computer science, and his mother a flutist. He spent most of his childhood in Japan, aside from a formative year in Evanston, Illinois at age 12. During junior high school, he developed an early fascination with Surrealism and created a painting inspired by René Magritte. By high school, his interests expanded to include artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. He avidly read magazines on graphic design and fine art and regularly visited exhibitions. Around this time, he began experimenting with photography and photocopiers to produce self-portraits. His maternal uncle, a graphic designer working in Corporate Identity, gave him composition exercises. He was deeply drawn to the New York art scene—this was the early 1980s. At the time, personal computer was in its infancy. And since his father worked in computer science, he was given the first personal computer by NEC, and mathematically formulated abstract images. He wanted to pursue computer graphics as a future career which is now referred to as digital art. In 1984, at age 18, he moved permanently to the United States with his family and began his formal art education at Cornell University. He later received a BFA in graphic design from Rhode Island School of Design in 1995. Following his graduation, he began exhibiting his work as a fine artist. He has exhibited his work in various galleries on both coasts and in Europe. The highlight of his achievements are exhibitions at such prestigious non-profits as The LAB (San Francisco), White Columns (NYC) and Print Center New York (NYC). Over the years, he has lived and exhibited on both coasts and now resides in Dexter, Michigan.