National Photographic Portrait Prize 2011 Finalist
Katsuya and I met in a sushi shop in Melbourne. I have always been attracted to the Japanese aesthetic and psyche but Katsuya struck me as unique and hard to define. His studio space embodied the essence of the artist and gave me a rare ambience for my backdrop. Katsuya is what I would describe as an anomaly. Although obviously Japanese, he paints from a 17th century European tradition, his paintings, mostly religious, glow in rich dark colours and layers of lacquer. In and of himself, Katsuya represents the ability of art to surprise and fascinate, getting us to see things in a different way.