Ryo Kato

Ryo Kato trained as a master student under Daniel Richter at the Berlin University of the Arts. His paintings have entered the permanent collection of the Okayama Prefectural Museum, and institutional solo exhibitions are scheduled at the Stadtmuseum Schopfheim, Germany (2025) and the Nariwa Museum, Japan (2026).

Kato's paintings sit at the intersection of figuration and abstraction: recognizable motifs surface through dense, worked color, layered and scraped back. Environmental degradation is a recurring subject, a concern he traces in part to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and he has described his work as an attempt to trace the connections between people, nature, economy, consumption, war, and religion. He counts Albert Oehlen and Jörg Immendorff among his touchstones.

Born in 1978 in Niimi, Okayama Prefecture, Japan, Kato trained in drawing and painting locally before moving to Berlin at nineteen. He studied first under Wolfgang Petrick at the Berlin University of the Arts, then became a master student of Daniel Richter (2001–2006), and has lived and worked in Berlin since.