Tomoaki Suzuki Mito, Japan, b. 1972

Lives and works in London.

Suzuki studied at Tokyo Zokei University, then did an MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths’ College, and another in Sculpture at City & Guilds Art School. He has received the Arts Foundation Fellowship and the Crafts Council Development Award.

Suzuki’s sculptures combine traditional Japanese wood carving techniques with contemporary portraiture. He depicts his friends and also passersby he encounters on the street. Fascinated by fashion and its signifiers of Western consumerism and multiculturalism, Suzuki recreates his subjects in vivid color and detail, emphasizing how people define their individuality through the clothes they wear.

He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Galería de la SHCP, Mexico City; Centro Roberto Garza Sada, Universidad de Monterrey, Nuevo León; Museo de arte de la SHCP, Mexico City; Corvi­Mora, London; CAPC Contemporary Art Museum of Bordeaux, France; Art Institute of Chicago; Marc Jancou Contemporary, New York; Museo Marino Marini, Florence; SCAI The Bathhouse, Tokyo; Michael Janssen Gallery, Köln. He has also participated in group exhibitions at The National Museum of Art, Osaka; High Line, New York; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, among others.