Ryuji Kamiyama

Ryuji Kamiyama (born in 1972 in Tokyo) is an artist who paints on canvas, clothing and ceramics. In the early 1990s he left graphic design for clothing. Fresh out of Bunka Gakuin, he met Jun Takahashi, the designer behind the Undercover label, at Laforet in Harajuku. Under the name FAMOUZ, he then ran a fashion business for ten years in the Ura-Harajuku district.

After FAMOUZ, Ryuji Kamiyama painted live, in the street as well as in public venues. He held his first solo exhibition in 2003. Others followed in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Northern Europe. He also travelled to Kagoshima to collect discarded pieces of ceramics, which he painted under the name BlANKS, before bringing all his activity together under his own name.

In 2018, Ryuji Kamiyama exhibited with the artist Shu Murakami in "SHUT UP AND DRINK" at BRICK & MORTAR in Nakameguro. He then exhibited in Shanghai with Sage House. In spring 2024, Lovus Gallery in Shibuya devoted "Hello Ratface" to him. The exhibition brought together sixteen new works, in two and three dimensions, around Ratface, the character he is identified with.

Ryuji Kamiyama works in acrylic and spray paint. In the WANDERLUST series, which includes the canvas "Stupid bubbles" (2022), he piles up coloured hearts until they form clusters in which white eyes open.