Mimura Chikuhō (b. 1973)　　

Born in Tokyo, Mimura Chikuhō trained initially as a musician and studied the trombone at the conservatoire in Heidelberg. He studied at both the well-known bamboo training school and the research institute at Oita and continued with two and a half years of study under the Beppu-based bamboo master Yufu Shōhaku. His artist name Chikuhō, meaning ‘Bamboo Shoot’ was conferred on him by Yufu Shōhaku in 2000. From the early 2000s, Mimura has exhibited at a number of venues in the West, including at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco in 2003 and he was selected as a finalist at the ‘Next Generation Festival’, San Francisco in 2007. In 2014, he moved to Kunisaki and started the Chikuhō Bamboo Art Lab. Inspired by nature and the elements, especially the wind and waves, some of his sculptural works use tonal contrasts created by thin strips of bamboo woven in different directions (yatara-ami). His works are in the collections of the following institutions: the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis.