TAKASHI MURAKAMI (1962)

Takashi Murakami is best known for his contemporary combination of fine art and pop culture. He uses recognizable iconography like Doraemon and cartoonish flowers and infuses it with Japanese culture. The result is a colorful body of work that takes the shape of paintings, sculptures and animations.
In the 1990s, Murakami founded the Superflat movement in an attempt to expose the "shallow emptiness of Japanese consumeristic culture." The artist plays on the familiar aesthetic of mangas, Japanese-language comics, to render works that appear popular and accessible, all the while denouncing the universality and impersonality of consumer goods. Murakami has done collaborations with numerous brands and celebrities including Kanye West, Louis Vuitton, Pharrell Williams and Google.