(monk painter; 1420–1506)

Priest painter of the mid-to-late Muromachi period. Sesshū, born in Akahama in Bitchū Province, counts as one of the most accomplished Japanese ink painters. After his move to Kyoto, he joined the temple Shōkokuji, where he studied painting with Shūbun. Later, he led the Unkokuan studio in Yamaguchi area. Sesshū joined one of the missions to Ming China to study Yuan and Ming style landscape and bird-and-flower painting. After his return to Japan he continued to travel widely.

(painter; act. early 17th c.)
Painter of the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods, born in Noto or Kaga (today Ishikawa Prefecture). Sōtatsu resided in Hōshū-ji Temple in Kyoto, where he mastered the painting techniques of Kano Eitoku and the ancient Tosa School method, becoming a precursor to the Rinpa school. He had close companionship with Karasumaru Mitsuhiro, Hon’ami Kōetsu, and others.

(nihonga painter; 1888–1939)
Nihonga painter, born in Osaka, Kagaku graduated from Kyoto Municipal Special School of Painting. Though successful at the Bunten, Kagaku doubted the merit of the selection criteria and eventually ceded his submissions. Together with Tsuchida Bakusen, Ono Chikkyō, Sakakibara Shihō, and Nonagase Banka, Kagaku founded Kokuga sōsaku kyōkai (Association for the Creation of National Painting) in 1918, an organization that would hold its own annual salons, the Kokuten. The controversy surrounding his Nude (1920) contributed to Kagaku distancing himself from the art world. Due to declining health, he moved to Ashiya near Kobe and led a recluse life, concentrating on Buddhist themes. Many of his works are deeply spiritual and meditative in tone.

Kobayashi was born in Okayama Prefecture in 1987. Her first name is Chiyono, last name Kobayashi, and pseudonym Gyokuu. She currently resides in Kyoto. She received her PhD from the Nihonga (Japanese painting) Division of Fine Arts program at Kyoto City University of Arts. From 2015 to 2018, she conducted research on the collection of replicas at the University Art Museum of Kyoto City University of Arts and published her findings in 2020 in Analysis of Copies: How have painters made reproduction? published by The Archival Research Center at Kyoto City University of Arts (with Princess Akiko of Mikasa, Tajima Tatsuya, Gyokuu Kobayashi, et. https://www.kcua.ac.jp/arc/publication/utsushi/）

Similarly, she received a research grant from The Housen Cultural Foundation in Japanese sculpture and painting from 2016 to 2018, created a replica of the Sliding Screens (painted in 1867) at Kogosho, Kyoto Imperial Palace, which was exhibited at the “6th Research and Presentation Exhibition of Japanese Painting and Sculpture in the Field of Cultural Properties: Japanese Painting and Sculpture, From the Past to Future”. In 2014, she participated in a training program sponsored by the Dunhuang Culture Promotion Fund based on the Dunhuang Grottoes Conservation Research Foundation, where she researched and traced the “Deer King Jakata painting” frescoes in the 257th cave of Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. In 2017, she studied abroad at the China Academy of Art (Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province) as an advanced trainee, majoring in landscape painting and studying traditional landscape painting based on the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting and painting theory. From 2018 to 2020, she was a part-time lecturer at Kyoto City University of Arts and from 2024 has been a part-time lecturer at Osaka Seikei University. Kobayashi is also a renowned traditional Japanese dancer from the Asuka-ryu School.

Established in 2000, ”The Formant Brothers” is a collaborative half-brother duo specializing in composition and meditation by the older Miwa Masahiro and the younger Sakonda Nobuyasu. Based on the medium of “voice,” they explore contemporary issues at the intersection of technology and art from philosophical, aesthetic, musical, and technical viewpoints while aiming for machines to sing songs from the 21st century.

Miwa Masahiro was born in Tokyo in 1958. He studied composition at the Berlin University of the Arts and the Robert Schumann Hochschule für Musik. Accolades include the Irino Prize (1989), the Akutagawa Composition Award (2004), the Golden Nica at the Prix Ars Electronica (2007), the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize (2010), and the Saji Keizo Prize (2020) for the revival of his monologue opera “A New Era” (2017) and his audience-less live performance “Miwa Masahiro Festival – The Purified Night” (2020), among others. He has published many works, including “The Complete Thoughts of Miwa Masahiro, Music and Art 1998-2010″ (Artes Publishing, 2010), “Muramatsu Gear (Le Sacre Du Printemps)” (CD, Fontec, 2012), and other musical scores. He formerly taught at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences [IAMAS] and since 2024, has been a professor at the Kyoto University of the Arts, Institute for Philosophy and Science of Art.

Sakonda Nobuyasu was born in Kobe in 1961. A musician and media artist, he completed his graduate studies in sociology at Kobe University. He has since created many compositions and performance works using real-time voice synthesis he developed independently through the programming software Max and has actively published articles in media theory about voices and machines. Recently, his research has included the function of sound in cinema. His publications include “Max Textbook” (co-authored with Masayuki Akamatsu, Rittor Music) and his solo CD “Clockwork Hermes” (childisc, 2000). He continues to be active in the synthetic voice duo “The Formant Brothers” with Miwa Masahiro. He is a professor in the Department of Visual Media at Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences.

CEO, SASSO CO., LTD.

Graduated from Musashino Art University Junior College of Art and Design, Department of Crafts Design

1986-1990 Worked at Studio Michele De Lucchi in Milan, Italy

1991 Returned to Japan and established STUDIO SANAE KAWAI (product design, store and house design) in Kyoto

1994-present Working in Kobe

2019 Established video production company SASSO Co., Ltd. Planning, production, and distribution of video and digital content, as well as publication and seminar planning. Currently producing a documentary film on the theme “patterns and ornaments.”