UESHIMA MUSEUM The 3rd Collection Exhibition “The Image Burns, Distorts, and Sublimates into Light” 2026.9.2 —

KOTAO TOMOZAWA

slime CXXVII
  • slime CLXXXIX Title: slime CLXXXIX
    Year: 2023
    Medium: oil on canvas
    Dimensions: 162 x 130.3 cm (63 3/4 x 51 1/4 in.)
Born in Bordeaux, France in 1999. Tomozawa graduated from the Department of Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, majoring in oil painting in 2022, and completed the Graduate School of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2024. She paints a doll named "Ruki-chan" and her own face with slime placed on top of them. Capturing the viscosity and translucency of slime in fine detail, the paintings express a sense of touch visually. She makes the slime by hand, adjusting the chemical mix and colorants each time, and paints from photographs of these trials. Tomozawa received the Kume Keiichiro Prize (Kume Keiichiro Scholarship Fund) for fiscal 2019 and the Ueno Geiyu Prize (Ueno Geiyu Scholarship) for fiscal 2021, both awarded to outstanding students at Tokyo University of the Arts. She has also been active widely outside the university. Tomozawa's mother is the manga artist and illustrator Mimiyo Tomozawa, and Tomozawa is also known as the model for characters in her works; after working in entertainment as a model and singer, Tomozawa set out on the path of a painter. In 2022 she held, remarkably early, a solo exhibition in retrospective format at PARCO MUSEUM TOKYO and published the monograph "KOTAO," and continues to present work at many galleries and art fairs. Exhibitions include "MOT Annual 2023: Synergies, or between creation and generation" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2023.