Takeshi Motomiya

Originally located in the Gracia district of Barcelona, the studio has been acknowledged as one of the best printmaking studios in Spain. Their work has been exhibited in museums around the world such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) of New York, during the Antoni Tàpies in Print exhibition, or at the Musée Picasso Paris, during Miquel Barceló, Sol y Sombra exhibit in 2016.

*NICAF (Nippon International Contemporary Art Fair) – Currently known as Art Fair Tokyo.

Outside Japan, Motomiya's work has been mostly exhibited in Europe, in cities such as Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam and Mahón (Minorca) where he has been regularly exhibiting since 2012.

Since the beginning of their work as printmakers, and for more than twenty years, they were the only printmaking studio of Antoni Tàpies' work. In fact, they kept working with him until the artist's passing in 2012. Apart from Tàpies, they have worked with many other national and international artists, among which are Barry Flanagan, Balthus, Miquel Barceló and Perejaume.

In 2009, Motomiya began teaching printmaking techniques at the Escola Massana of Barcelona within the Experimental Edition Course of the Massana Permanent program. The course was taught until 2012.

During his first exhibition at the 5th NiCAF in 1997, Motomiya was introduced to the Japanese poet and literary critic, Makoto Ōoka (大岡 信, 1931–2017). After seeing Motomiya's work, Ōoka described him as the artist painted by pictures, which he later used as the title for the article in which he wrote about Motomiya's work. Ōoka who came to admire the artist's work, became a regular buyer of Motomiya's work. Today, some of those paintings are part of the private collection exhibited at the Ōoka Makoto Kotoba Museum, in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture.

After settling in Barcelona, in 1989, while continuing his work in painting, he and an associate founded the Taller Nou studio, which became a printmaking studio specialized in engraving and etching techniques for professional artists.

It was that same year, in one of his European trips where Motomiya, at the age of 27, fell in love with the city of Barcelona, where he has been established since 1986. It was upon his settlement in Barcelona that Motomiya began to focus entirely on his painting.

In 1984, with an invitation from his grandmother who at the time was living in France, Motomiya undertook his first trip to Europe with the intention of getting to know the art of European museums. While residing in France, Motomiya travelled around Europe were he had the opportunity to exhibit alongside his grandparents, and his uncle in a joint exhibition at the Galerie d’Eendt in Amsterdam in 1986.

He graduated in Fine Arts in 1982, with a master's degree specializing in engraving techniques in 1984 by the Tama Art University of Tokyo. Despite the fact that his academic background was focused on engraving, his personal development as an artist has matured above all in the area of painting.

Takeshi Motomiya (Japanese: 本宮 健史 Motomiya Takeshi (Japanese pronunciation: [motomʲija takeɕi] ), born 5 December 1959, Tokyo, Japan) is a multidisciplinary Japanese artist living in Barcelona since 1986. Throughout his career, he has worked within various visual arts disciplines that include painting, engraving, and sculpture. Characterized by his work of textures and natural pigment colors, his work is mainly based on abstract art and shows some attributes of figurativism and abstract expressionism, infused with ancient Japanese gods, biblical content, and Greek and Egyptian mythology.

Takeshi Motomiya was born on 5 December 1959 in Shibuya, Tokyo. He was born into a highborn family of painters, and grew up surrounded by an artistic environment, between galleries and exhibitions. His grandmother, Migishi Setsuko (Japanese: 三岸 節子 , 1905–1999), known as one of the pioneering Japanese women in oil painting, and his grandfather, Migishi Kōtarō (Japanese: 三岸 好太郎 , 1903–1934), known as one of the first painters who began paintings by surrealism in Japan, were the main influential characters in Motomiya's interest towards the art world.