Born in 1990. Challenging new possibilities in painting expression against the backdrop of Japanese character culture centered on manga and anime.

At the core of Nodosan's work lies the context of “manga,” which he has breathed in since childhood. In his evolving series, he presents his own conception of “characters” by colliding the symbolic power inherent in manga with the material serendipity of painting.

The series “Deno-tterage,” where he draws monsters using wall stains and accidental ink or paint smudges as guides, evokes surrealist techniques like decalcomania and frottage. His affinity for the “abnormal” within Japanese character culture blends with abstract-like unconscious strokes, conjuring humorous yet somehow unsettling lifeforms onto the canvas.

In our digitized age, this could be seen as a form of contemporary myth-making, weaving stories from the analog noise of stains.

Furthermore, the large-scale series “Our Battle Begins Now!!” takes as its theme the sudden “cancellation of serialization”—a phenomenon unique to manga magazines? By rendering the final page—which unjustly declares the story's forced conclusion—on a massive canvas, it confronts us with fiction as a narrative that could unfold in reality. Through meticulous linework and overwhelming scale, this “meta-finality” evoking loss and the aesthetics of incompleteness is reimagined, transforming manga as subculture into “contemporary history painting.”

Nodosan does not merely quote manga as a “style”; he deconstructs and reconstructs its very structure and the reading experience itself. Monsters born from splattered paint embody the physicality of drawing. The colossal final pages of manga embody the public nature of storytelling. We find ourselves experiencing the boundary between ‘subculture’ and “art.”

Born in 1990

Major Solo Exhibitions

2014 “Done-tterage Exhibition” (MU Higashi-Shinsaibashi Gallery / Osaka)

2017 “I Am Japanese Boy” (Linlow / Osaka)

2025 “Our Battle Begins Now!!” (Note Gallery / Osaka)

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