6000miles

Akira specialises in live paintings. He has performed live on various stages such as clubTUNNEL (New York), Art & Historical centre (Brooklyn, NY), a Paul Smith shopfront (Shibuya), LOFT (Shinjuku), Yellow (Nishi-Azabu), Yokohama BayHall, and Yoyogi Park special stage.

Akira also spends time organising live painting events for children in the U.S. military bases in Okinawa, teaching at the university, and hosting painting summer camps for children.

Born in Tokyo, 1973, Hirooka has been a freelance designer since 1997.

In 2000, he started designing under the name, LEVEL1. The core field of his design is paper based 2D graphic design, but he also works in logo and identity design, t-shirts, writing, motion graphic production and VJing.

Chihiro graduated from the International Christian University (Bachelor of Liberal Arts) in 1998. Whilst working at the Art Centre, Ichinose studied photography under Michiharu Baba.

In 2000, she was awarded a prize at Konika Photo Premio Photography Contest and has since held several individual exhibitions. In 2004, she became an independent photographer.

Born in Hikone City (Shiga) in 1970, Suwa graduated from The Department of Photography at Tokyo Polytechnic University. Since 1997, he has worked as an independent photographer mainly for magazines.

Exhibitions:

1991 - Graduation exhibition
1994 - Group exhibition 'Planet'
1997 - Photo exhibition 'Love Croquette'
2000 - Photo exhibition 'Stay Gold'

Sou graduated from the department of Visual Communication Design at Toyo Institute of Art and Design in 2000 and won 'Best Graduate of the Year'.

Sou currently works freelance in animation, illustration and graphic design. His animation 'View' was shown at the international animation festival 'Resfest'. It has since played in three cities in Japan and Korea.

Born in 1967, Chikara is a painter, video artist and animater. He has recently collaborated with the band organ-o-rounge.

He graduated from Tama Art University with a Major in (Visual) Graphic Design.

Satoshi was born in Tokyo in 1971. After studying anthropology and sociology at Western State College of Colorado, part of the University of Oregon, he became interested in documentary photographs. He went on to study photography at the Art Institute of Colorado.

As well as shooting fashion, music and advertising photos, Satoshi also takes photos of scenes in Tokyo and Japanese automobile culture based on his experiences in his study of anthropology and sociology.

Kurokawa has been awarded numerous prizes in painting and illustration competitions. He has worked on a wide range of projects in illustration and design and also researches Spiritual Arts, Outsider Arts and Low-brow Arts.

Kurokawa sells original t-shirts at BEAMS T, and TOWER CAFÉ. An animation 'Anoyo Express', on which he collaborated, received high acclaim and was aired at all branches of BEAMS T.

His controversial work, 'Totaling Forty', depicted scenes of contemporary Tokyo. Kurokawa is now working on publishing of his first art collection.

Hiroki was born in Kagawa in 1978 and graduated from the Visual Communication Department of Musashino Art College in Tokyo. He started his career with design agency 'NAN' with Susumu Hirose and became a freelance designer in 2004. He works mainly in graphic design but also 3D space, music and apparel.

In his recent activities, Hiroki has performed live painting and released a CD, 'Void Village'. He has had Manga creations published in 'SIM03' and also been involved with the fashion brand 'UNNON'.

Shun works as an art director and designer of graphics, artwork, interactive media and motion graphics.

Based in Tokyo, 'artless' is a collaboration of various people with skills as varied as graphic design, web development, motion graphics, event production, installations and DJ performances. 'artless' also actively collaborates with overseas artists.

In 1997, Masato held a solo exhibition in Covent Garden, London. In 1999, he began working freelance as a graphic designer and painter, and has since won a 'Choice Exhibition' award from Japanese art magazine 'Illustration'.

Masato moved to Manchester in 2001 and studied English. In 2003, he set up 'Subsist Magazine', a cross-cultural art magazine, in association with Navix Europe. Masato currently works as Chief Editor and Art Director of the magazine and he also promotes Japanese artists, designers and illustrators in Europe.

In 2003, Nero graduated from the Department of Sculpture at Mushashino Art University and was awarded MA from the Department of Inter Media Art at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.

Nero has exhibited many times in 2004, including at the Tokyo Zokei University, the Digital Art Festival Tokyo and the 7th Exhibition of Taro Okamoto Memorial Award for Contemporary Art.

We must do the 'right thing'.

However, it is difficult to know what the 'right thing' is in today's Japan.

Religion and its associated ethics have never had a strong presence and the sense of community and social morality that once was strong is in decline here.

I feel lost, but I am searching. What can I do? I feel I must paint. I must paint thousands of pictures and I know that this, at least, is the right thing for me.

In 1993, Noritomo graduated from Toyo Institute of Art and Design in Tokyo. Since 1996, he has been involved in creating CD packaging, VJing, and character design, and is currently working on various music projects and magazines in Japan.

'SSAJ' is a design group formed by Norimoto Shimizu (illustrator), Ryo Takahashi (concept & design) and Katsutoshi Ishikawa (photographer). They are involved with CD design, magazines and installation work.