Hiroya Kurata looking at the camera with his arms crossed, wearing a muted green T-shirt and a lime green cap

Hiroya Kurata

1 collaboration

finished painting by Hiroya Kurata hanging in his studio
Hiroya Kurata looking at the camera with his arms crossed, wearing a muted green T-shirt and a lime green cap

Hiroya Kurata

"I'm painting my diary. Nothing complicated."

Subtly weird paintings that leave you feeling warm inside

A lot of artists have big dreams. Hiroya Kurata is one of them. But his big dreams revolve around the quiet joys of daily life, not the fading glamour of 'success.' "I feel like it's emotionally easier for me to paint now after telling myself: paint what I can now at this age." You can feel how liberating this approach is when you look at his work. His style is fun, loose and illustrative, a bit like the pages of a children's book. Kurata usually paints photographs he's taken of himself, his wife and three children. They hang out in places you recognise. A kitchen table, a river, a tennis cour...

Bio

Hiroya Kurata (he/him) was born 1980 in Osaka, Japan. He grew up between America and Japan and now lives in New York City.

Influences

Kurata is influenced by many different things in art and life, and his interests are always evolving. Landscape painters like Milton Avery, Fairfield Porter and Lois Dodd have played a particular role in guiding the detailed, nature-heavy backgrounds of his paintings.

Art school

In 1999, Kurata enrolled at the Parsons School of Design in New York. "I didn't study during my four years in college. I feel like I was too busy hanging out with my friends because I believed art was something not meant to be studied."


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