Keisuke Yamaguchi (OZ)

Keisuke Yamaguchi, who works under the artist name OZ, is a contemporary Japanese painter who carries the spirit of the floating world into the twenty-first century through vibrant compositions that blend traditional Japanese aesthetics with thoroughly modern imagery. Born in Nagano Prefecture in 1986, he studied architecture at Nagano National College of Technology beginning in 2003 and continued at the Nagaoka Institute of Design, where he studied Architecture and the Environment before shifting his focus entirely to painting.

Inspired by the woodblock prints of nineteenth and early twentieth century landscape masters, OZ has developed a distinctive visual language that feels simultaneously rooted in Japanese tradition and alive with contemporary energy. His paintings deploy bold color, dynamic composition, and an intuitive sense of rhythm that recalls both ukiyo-e and street art. He considers the power of unseen forces, both natural and human, and his work often depicts landscapes, shrines, and seasonal scenes transformed by an almost electric vitality.

OZ integrates process and product through live painting performances that have drawn crowds from the ruins of Ueda Castle in Nagano to Central Park in New York City. These performances, in which he creates large-scale works in real time before an audience, emphasize the physical energy and improvisational spirit that animate all his work.

In 2016, he was named the inaugural winner of the Ronin Globus Artist-in-Residence Program, which brought him to New York City to live, work, and exhibit. He has also collaborated with master engravers and a printer to produce original woodblock prints through the Ukiyo-e Art Project associated with The Peninsula Tokyo, bridging his contemporary painting practice with the traditional printmaking techniques that first inspired him. He has exhibited at Ronin Gallery, Art Front Gallery, the ISE Cultural Foundation, and venues across Japan and the United States.