Oscar Oiwa was born in São Paolo, Brazil in 1965. He is a second-generation Japanese-Brazilian, and started working in Tokyo in 1991 after graduating from the University of São Paolo School of Architecture and Urbanism. He has been based in New York since 2002. His dynamic, birds-eye view compositions, with a narrative richness that blends actual urban or natural scenes with imagined worlds, are highly regarded in Japan and around the world. His detailed yet warmhearted depictions, contrast of light and shade, and bold use of color may have been influenced by the climate of Brazil, where the artist was born and raised. Oiwa humorously weaves his own experience of travel and migration, as well as the social issues he witnesses in his everyday life, into the themes of his work. He has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2008, the Museo Nacional de Belas Artes (Rio de Janeiro) in 2011, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Ishikawa) in 2019, and has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including the Setouchi Triennale.