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• Yoneyoshi

  Yoneyoshi has enjoyed drawing girls since she was a child, and she was already using a PC and tablet in elementary school. The breadth of expression in her art increased as her understanding of pen tablets grew, and she now uses a variety of media, being essentially self-taught in the use of every gadget that she touches (from painting and 3DCG apps to knitting). Yoneyoshi constantly has her fingers on the Ctr + Z buttons, so the finished work, which goes through countless iterations before she is satisfied, is nothing short of a miracle.

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• Kazuhiro Kobayashi

  Kazuhiro Kobayashi has a mild intellectual disability and an intractable disease (a disease that gradually makes it difficult for him to move his muscles). As a result, he is unable to walk and lives his life in an electric wheelchair. Nonetheless, he is an avid and fearless wheelchair user, taking the train on his own to go anywhere he pleases. He has even been the Himalayas with his mother. It appears that his experience in the Himalayas had a major effect on him, and lately he has been producing many works with mountains as their theme. Because of his weak grip, he can barely hold the paintbrush when he is creating his work. He rubs the hard-to-hold brush on the canvas, and this unique brushwork is one of the charms of his work.

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• Takao Mizuno

  Mizuno’s dense canvases, colored using forceful pressure, leave a strong impression. He has created a completely unique world with vibrant colors, painstaking work, and whimsical lines. According to the artist, the blocks of background colors can be divided into sun, sky, grass, and earth. At the gallery and café run by KiKiCreative, his extremely earnest demeanor perfectly meshes with work as a barista, and so he was appointed master barista. His portraits of people and animals with intense gazes are popular.

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• Kota Sekoguchi

  Sekoguchi began creating art at Atelier HUMAN.ELEMENT in 2013 and he has been working in oils since 2014. At the employment support center that he visits each day, he loves interacting with nature—pulling weeds and raking leaves—so much that even when the sun goes down, he keeps working unless the staff tell him it's time to stop. Many of the oil paintings he works on every day at home are based on themes of nature and animals. For each canvas, he spends several months using his own imagination to express the inspiration that he feels from the colors and scents of plants, soil, and water as his own original world.

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• Takashi Maeda

  Maeda is serious and calm and he works steadily day after day. He chooses a photo that interests him from a travel brochure or some other source and then he draws what he imagines on paper. The image on the paper changes again and again until it is finished. Maeda seems to enjoy examining the shapes that come into being only by chance, saying things like "It looks like a fox” and "It looks like a snake."

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• Saori Yamashita

  Yamashita is loved like an older sister by the members of the atelier. Her favorite animals and plants often appear in her works, which are drawn with a gentle touch and colors that gel with her personality. She cherishes the connections to others that she nurtures through the things she creates. She takes flowers grown on the veranda or picked by the roadside and turns them into dried flowers, and besides paintings, she produces accessories and crafts.

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• Afuru Watanabe

  Watanabe has belonged to Swing since 2019. His natural mode of painting is very casual, as if he were just sipping coffee, or as if he were just lounging in front of the TV, a stance that can make observers wonder if he even enjoys painting pictures. He is a master of detox, using a variety of materials deftly and confidently to strip away the eroticism from nudes and the wildness from ferocious animals, all drawn in his unique hand. “Waiting for the Sun” is Watanabe's first piece on a size 100 canvas, and it takes its name from the title of the chart-topping album by the Doors.

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• Youta Ebiko

  Ebiko began creating from an early age. His models are dogs and cats that he has actually met, and even if he draws another of the same breed, each has a different expression and mood. He has a grasp of all of the works he has created and gives each a perfect title. When he starts on a work, his expression changes and he goes silent. But near the end he starts humming a favorite tune as he heads for the finish. He works prolifically every day, producing and selling many works in the hopes that once he has enough money saved, he can take care of as many dogs and cats as he likes. He paints directly without a preliminary sketch and finishes his works in just a short time. As a result, he has amassed a huge collection of works at the atelier.

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• Hiroyuki Ukai

  Ukai has belonged to Atelier Yamanami since 2011. He uses a black ballpoint pen to draw circles over and over again on paper. At first glance, the countless circles of various sizes seem to be the result of an act repeated again and again without intention, but before one knows it they form pretty and well-balanced rows that look as if they had been calculated from the very beginning. The way he draws differs depending the situation at the time. Sometimes he concentrates and silently keeps drawing his circles, and at other times he works with a smile as he sways rhythmically, as if he is enjoying the sensation of pen on paper and the sound of rolling. His feelings and thoughts of the day are deeply reflected in each layered circle.

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• Akari Enomoto

  Colors are layered one on top another on pure white paper, dripping as if a paintbrush that has been soaked in paint has been shaken, coloring the paper with the splashes. From where the staff member prepares the paint, she applies color by daubing it on, and sometimes dribbling it on. “What color next?” ... “Yellow!” comes the reply. Each action brings a big smile to the faces of the atelier staff. The colors in the painting and how it is painted can vary depending on which staff member is next to her. She creates her works in communication with the staff. The staff members are always by her side to watch over her, thinking only about what they can do to make her happy. She unabashedly proclaims her love for the staff, and her smile touches many hearts.

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• Momoko Nakagawa

  Momoko has belonged to Atelier Yamanami since 2015. She writes down her own name, over and over again. She repeatedly writes over the letters, and the lines that are formed intertwine with each other so that the original form of the letters is lost, transforming the writing into a work that is akin to a painting. When she joined the atelier, she first worked in embroidery, creating a number of works. She took up embroidery with the aim of channeling her repetitive behaviors to be able to concentrate on an activity without too much effort, but then her interest shifted to writing. She's not choosy about her tools, using anything from color markers to pens. She writes without stopping, as if she enjoys how the letters change as she overwrites them as well as the sound of the pen and the feel of it in her hand.

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• Yui Chounan

  Chounan has a calm and gentle personality, and her works are always overflowing with kindness. Her paintings of flowers and animals using soft pastels and acrylic paints heal peoples’ hearts. She lives in the city of Fuji, and with its soft color palate, her painting of Mt. Fuji expresses the grandeur and serenity of the mountain. One can sense the youthful energy, purity, and honesty of this 20-year-old in this work.

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• Shunta Akai

  Akai draws motifs that are cute and idyllic, but with a somewhat surreal mood. He values routine. Drawing the same things over and over again—such as animals, vehicles, and food—seems to calm him. He especially loves vehicles and military aircraft, and he reproduces even the tiniest details. In contrast to the mood of his work, he is very energetic. He will suddenly put down his pencil, and then after shaking and jumping around, he will get right back to work as if nothing happened. He also moves around during his break time, with such a powerful leap that it makes one worry that he could hit his head on the ceiling.

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• Yasuharu Noumi

  Noumi takes on whatever interests him, whether it is theater, music, dance, training to improve his skills, or travel. He also writes travelogues. He has been involved with Awaiya since 2014, and he sums up what he is feeling each day in the form of a single character that he writes down. It takes a considerable amount of physical strength to write such large characters, and he can't do it on his own, but he has an exceptionally good feeling after he has finished his writing.

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• Suguru Nakatake

  Nakatake has liked drawing since he was an elementary school student, and he paints the objects that he sees in his daily life—drinking glasses, fruits, supermarket flyers—combined with lettering. These days, he goes to his original art teacher's house once a week, and he belongs to Art Station Donkoya, where he is able to express himself and enjoy life as a member of this organization. At his art teacher's house he paints pictures of flowers on B1 poster-size paper, and at Donkoya the subjects of his paintings are objects on the dining table and anything else that catches his eye. He often draws the faces of people he encounters and then presents the drawing as a gift. Nakatake is not adept at conversation, so for him, drawing has become a tool for communicating with other people. The way he draws flowers and other objects on a large sheets of paper without hesitation makes it seem like he’s having a conversation with the flowers

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