Aya Takano

Born in 1976, Aya Takano is one of Japan’s popular modern day pop artists associated with the Superflat movement. She works for Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki company along side many other artists. Like her contemporaries, she is also influenced by the Japanese Manga or Anime cartoons but she highlights another aspect of these characters: eroticism. In her works, her heroines are often nude participating in suggested erotic acts.

Aya Takano puts forth the ideas and fantasies of her generation and in her life too she lives an ideal that is symptomatic of present day Japan. Like her generation that embraces professionalism and idealizes commercial success Takano takes art only for gaining success in material life; for her art is not an end in itself.

This is significantly different from artists ten years back. Aya Takano trades between commercial and fine art activities easily. She is a regular illustrator for Manga comics, an essayist and an artist as well. She hardly paints with traditional art-material. Her works are mostly computer graphics digitally printed on various types of material.


Aya Takano has exhibited in mostly France, USA and Japan. She is a regular contributor to the Superflat shows. Like most other atists who have made it big abroad, Aya Takano spend a large part of her life travelling abroad. She lives in Tokyo.