Short Biography

Ryuku Otsuka (b. 1996, Tokyo) is a Japanese contemporary artist based in Paris. He practices Nihonga, the traditional Japanese painting method using natural pigments and minerals. Embracing this technique as a way to ground his cultural identity, Otsuka explores themes of memory, presence, and the dialogue between past and present through layered brushwork and patient repetition.

Having left Japan at the age of fifteen, his relationship to Nihonga developed as both an artistic and personal reconnection with cultural heritage. The slow, material-driven process of painting becomes central to his practice, reflecting a resistance to speed and standardization within contemporary visual culture.

Influenced by the philosophy of craftsmanship and by Marcel Duchamp’s notion of the spectator as an active participant, Otsuka creates works that invite contemplation and open interpretation. His paintings often draw from fleeting moments, stillness, and subjective memory, creating spaces where time is suspended and meaning emerges through perception.

Through his work, Otsuka seeks to position traditional craft not as nostalgia, but as a living and critical language within contemporary art.