Illustration

Yuka Yamaguchi

Yuka is a self-taught visual artist born in Kobe, Japan. She studied English in Vancouver in 1995. She moved to Winnipeg in 2000 and immigrated in 2002. She’d lived in Kingston before settled in Saskatoon in 2005. Although she enjoys challenges, she struggled to adapt herself to the new environment as an immigrant. That’s when […]

Kimiko Fraser

Kimiko Fraser is an illustrator and historian-in-training based on the beautiful West Coast of British Columbia. She grew up constantly making—drawing, painting, knitting, sculpting, bookbinding etc—and has never learned how to stop. Kimiko earned a degree in Bachelor of Arts, Honours History, Major Visual Arts from the University of Victoria. Kimiko works with many mediums […]

Will Shintani

A Yonsei, Will was born and raised in Toronto, ON, Canada. Mom is Japanese-Canadian, and Dad is Ecuadorian. Using both traditional and digital illustration, Will strives to create artworks that examine the human condition. He likes to engage, study and analyze people. Will says, “It’s about asking questions as much as it is about answers.” […]

Justine Wong

hello! I’m Justine Wong, a full-time freelance illustrator based in Toronto and Tokyo. I am also the creator of the project ’21 Days in Japan: An Illustrative Study on Japanese Cuisine’, consisting of 100 paintings of my meals throughout Japan. When I am not illustrating, I am a dedicated member of Lunchroom, a creative collective […]

Shizuka Kai

Shizuka is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on set design and puppetry. She also works as a trained puppeteer on tv/film, an illustrator/graphic designer, director, and earring maker. She is a three-time Jessie Richardson award winner with multiple nominations, the recipient of the Earl Klein Memorial Scholarship / Bill Millerd Artist Fund / Steven […]

Danielle Jette

Danielle Jette is a Vancouver based graphic designer and illustrator. She studied at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and graduated in 2013 with a Bachelor of Fine Art majoring in illustration. Since graduation she has completed a number of freelance contract projects with a variety of local organizations including Vancouver Opera, Translink, Dish […]

Cindy MOCHIZUKI

Cindy Mochizuki creates multi-media installation, animation, drawing, audio fiction, performance, and community-engaged projects. She has exhibited her work in Canada, US, Australia, and Japan. Recent exhibitions include the Surrey Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, Burrard Arts Foundation, Richmond Art Gallery, Frye Art Museum, and Yonago City Museum. In 2015, she received the Vancouver’s Mayor’s Arts […]

Mia Ohki

Mia Ohki is an Japanese Canadian artist, born in Connecticut, USA, and raised in Alberta, Canada. She now lives and works in Vancouver, BC. She primarily illustrates with black pen on white paper to convey her thoughts, however she also uses many other visual art mediums, including sculpture and painting, to study concepts that interest […]

Elizabeth Hasegawa Agresta

Elizabeth is a painter and third generation artist, carrying on a family legacy in the creative arts which includes: kimono design, Japanese ceramics, classic wooden yacht design, culinary arts, photography, painting, writing, and poetry. Elizabeth studied at The Art Students League of New York and currently dedicates her time to studying contemporary art, experimenting with […]

Yurie Hoyoyon

Yurie is a multi talented girl in Vancouver; she is… An illustrator, graphic designer, portrait artist, greeting cards artist. Also a voice actress, MC, poetry event coordinator for the Vancouver based poet Soramaru Takayama, and a TV reporter of Nikkei TV. As an illustrator and a portrait artist, she has worldwide client base including North […]

Kaori Kasai

Kaori Kasai (Kao), a.k.a. Sleepless Kao, is an artist-in-motion who graduated from art school (Setsu Mode Seminar) in Tokyo, specializing in fashion illustration. Since then, she travelled to live and work in San Francisco, Hong Kong, and now Vancouver. She creates her own world of eccentric creatures and personalities which bloom into the void: gigantic […]

Barb Miiko Gravlin

Barbara ‘Miiko’ Nishimura- Gravlin was born in Tashme, the largest of Japanese Canadian internment camps in B.C. At an early age, she became an abstract painter under mentors, Richard Gorman and Mashel Teitelbaum and Kazuo Nakamura. In 1965, she was the recipient of a Canada Council Travel grant in Painting for six months tenure studying […]

Helen Koyama

Helen Koyama is a Sansei writer based in Toronto. Her poetry was published in the landmark Asian Canadian anthology Inalienable Rice in 1979, and she also did illustrations for Rikka and Ricepaper magazines. She has worked in the Japanese Canadian community in Toronto, including for The New Canadian, which also published her poetry. She currently […]

Ruth Ohi

Ruth Ohi is a writer and illustrator of children’s books. She has illustrated over 60 books, 19 of which she is also the author. Her work includes the illustrations for Naomi’s Tree by Joy Kogawa, and more recently a book about the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Kenta and the Big Wave.

San Murata

ARTIST San Murata is an Ontario-based painter living in a historic small town near Toronto. Born in Japan, he graduated from the University of Musashi in Tokyo with a degree in Economics in 1964. In 1968, he travelled to Canada to ‘have a look around’, and liked it so much that he decided to stay. […]