Koichi Sato Japan, b. 1974

Koichi Sato (b. 1974, Tokyo) is a self-taught artist based in New York City, where he has lived since the late 1990s. Working primarily in acrylic on paper, Sato creates boldly stylized figurative paintings that blend humor, nostalgia, and exuberance. His practice grew out of a fascination with the flood of images from television, sports, and vintage American magazines he encountered while growing up, which remain his primary source material.

Initially an art outsider with no formal training, Sato began painting whimsical portraits in his thirties. These portraits—marked by blocky, disproportionate figures and wide grins—radiate positivity and delight. His compositions often feature patterned backgrounds that compress space and crowd the figures forward, evoking the flatness of printed photographs while amplifying their presence. Through this visual language, Sato celebrates the everyday people who populate his imagination, offering viewers a warm and friendly lens on faces they might otherwise overlook.

In his recent series, Sato embarks on what he calls an “ecstasy journey,” populating his canvases with an eclectic cast—luchadores, priests, camels, pharaohs, flamenco dancers, even the Virgin Mary—set within dreamlike, placeless environments. The ornamental patterns of their clothing dissolve into the surrounding space, blurring figure and ground, and creating a compressed sense of time and space. Golden suns and halos appear throughout, guiding the viewer across scenes imbued with joy and wonder.

Sato’s cartoon-like figures reflect the multicultural identities that shape contemporary American life while offering a personal, imaginative escape from its daily pressures. Working from his studio in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Sato continues to expand his distinctive visual language of bold color, playful distortion, and infectious optimism.