Meet Gaku Azuma, a Japanese Artist Who Transforms Bodies Into Amazing Ink Paintings

Gaku Azuma is a multimedia artist who has a long relationship with the Japanese art world. He was born to a father who was an ōgi-e (扇絵) artist, which meant that he used traditional paper fans as a canvas for his paintings.

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Following his creative familial background, he’s been involved in creating his own paintings from a young age. Over the years, he’s continued to produce paintings and has held exhibitions for them while balancing his job as an art director.

In recent years, however, his paintings have flown from a blank paper to find a new canvas in the human body. Around 2012, Azuma started experimenting with body paintings. He stated that he was “fascinated” by the experience of painting on skin and has been obsessed with it since then.