Akiko Nakayama JP

Japanese multimedia visual artist based in Tokyo

Nakayama studied drawing and oil painting at Tokyo’s Zokei University, but became dissatisfied with the static nature of the medium and images that could only suggest movement. Inspired by the swirling flow of colours that took place when cleaning her brushes, she began creating prototypes of what would become her contemporary work—creating fountains that drip and ooze coloured water, and pioneering her first living paintings during friends’ concerts—favouring jazz and progressive rock artists for their tendencies to slowly coalesce their instruments into explosive finales. Her ever-shifting images have garnered global attention, including a talk at TED x Haneda explaining her process and detailing work that’s in demand from clients and collaborators as varied as Tokyo Fashion Week, filmmaker Hendrik Willemyns, and Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Nakayama’s images are astounding on a technical level, with intricate use of magnetic elements creating unpredictable synthesis and violent disruption between colour and pattern. Nakayama’s mutational works reach for the emotions and imagination, creating moments and abstract metaphors where she says the meeting of two colours represents the dance of Yin and Yang.