Gaku Azuma was born in 1963 in Kyoto, Japan to the ougi-e (Japanese traditional painting on paper fans) artist, Shoso Azuma. His artistic talents developed from a young age spending time with his father in one of Japan’s most cultural city, Kyoto. He later moved to the United States from the age of 14 for educational purpose and ended up staying there for three years. During that period, he painted a piece called “The French Doll” which is now permanently housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Despite of his successful carrier as an art director for the theatrical advertisement industry, he has been actively exhibiting his own art works, Bokuga, internationally and received the Osaka Mayor’s Award in 2007 with “The Bride of Frankenstein”. In the same year, his paintings, “The Long Neck,” and “Hundred Eyes,” were featured in the magazine, “Kokoku Hihyo,” and his first book of paintings, “Tenyo” was published by Parco Publishers.

Bokuga is a painting style he originated which has similarities to Suibokuga. The technique used for Bokuga requires the painter to make a beautiful gradation of the sumi-ink by applying numerous sensitive brush strokes, instead of just blurring the ink, as in the Suibokuga style.

His main theme is women or feminine energy in which he succeeded in depicting by taking away their individual aspects. Their sensual faces without eyebrows do not reveal nationality or age. The only aspect by which a woman is distinctive is by the design of kimono she wears. In contrast to the uniformity of the women, each of their kimonos appears vivid, ferocious, and fearsome. By wearing the kimono, each woman comes into existence by possessing a unique personality.

From the tip of his brush, the world blooms into a pure and sacred, yet sensual fragrance.