Ryo Shinagawa grounds his contemporary paintings in hundreds of years of tradition. From simplicity of Zen Buddhism, to the gold-leafed Rinpa school, Shinagawa brings together disparate elements of Japanese art to discover contemporary meaning for traditional materials and styles. In his words, “patterns, history, and thought, they are dependent on a given locale and environment.” As he brings centuries of traditional painting into the present, Shinagawa works at the intersection of the history of Japanese art and its future.

Born in in Kyoto in 1987, Ryo Shinagawa received his BA in Japanese Painting from Kyoto University of Art and Design in 2014 before completing his MA in the university’s graduate program. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Taiwan, Korea and Japan.