Our family was poor, but my parents gave us money for education.
In Japan, I am famous in certain special circles - mainly as someone who is trying to break down and enlighten the conventions of Japanese art.
I actually feel like the phrase 'big in Japan' is not appropriate for me. The reason is that there are more people who sympathize with my practice in America than there are domestically in Japan.
In Japan, I focus mostly on sending messages through Twitter, trying to spread my minority way of thinking.
In the West, it's just a given that art exists in this high-class place. But in Japan, there's no high class. The minute you come out, you're low class.
My parents came from the Kyushu Island in the Southern part of Japan to find work in Tokyo. So we could only afford to live downtown, in a low-income area. It was just by the river, and whenever a typhoon came around, we were under water up to, like, here. That's the kind of place we lived in.
When I was little, I guess I was just an ordinary kid. But then things changed when I was in junior high. You know, kids that become geeks become one because of something. Like, they aren't good at sports, or girls don't like them. I, too, for some reason, got into things like science fiction and, well, especially science fiction as an escape.
Every day, I have new ideas. It makes my brain tired, so I spend time taking care of company quality, finding new artists, and taking care of the young artists.
I don't always enjoy curating, but I do believe it's part of my job. It's a good exercise for my brain, like warming up. Just focusing on my work would be so depressing! For me, curating is necessary - it's like physical training.
When I was little, my parents belonged to a cult, a big Buddhist sect called Soka Gakkai. I didn't have any particular sentiment for or against religion, but I did feel bad about my parents' poverty and how it made them depend on that cult.
I grew up in a low-income area of Tokyo. Like most homes in Tokyo, ours was small. It was a free-standing, two-family rental duplex built 30 years earlier.
My father, Fukujuro, drove a cab and my mother, Itsuko, was a homemaker. My parents often took me to see Impressionist exhibits. At home, I would paint pictures in a similar style.
I tried to teach myself to draw anime, but I was so bad.
The works I made at the start of my career rely on the themes of war, atomic power, and outer space.
