Biography TAKAYOSHI UEDA

BIOGRAPHY

Takayoshi Ueda (b. 1969, Japan) lives and works in Wakayama. Since the mid-1990s, Ueda has been a pioneer in navigating the intersection of traditional oil painting and digital technology. His early experimentation with monochrome paint software evolved into a unique methodology he dubbed "Digilo-graphy"―a process that integrated the tactile texture of hand-painted materials with digital processing, challenging the inorganic nature of early computer graphics.

Over the following decades, his practice expanded into elaborate digital collages and the Spectrum Color Series (2005－2020), a body of figurative paintings documenting urban life in New York, each defined by its own tonal essence.

In his recent VISUALIUM Series, Ueda confronts the emergence of generative AI. Rather than using AI as a mere tool for collaboration, he positions it as a "Third World"―a domain of algorithmic abundance from which he extracts raw visual specimens. Through the "slow logic of the human body" and the disciplined, physical labor of oil painting, he reconstructs these ephemeral outputs into permanent structures of perception.

At the core of Ueda's work lies a profound inquiry into the role of human authorship in an era of automated creation. His practice serves as a final verification device, reclaiming the depth of human sensibility from the saturation of digital information.

Ueda’s major exhibitions include a solo show in New York (2006) and participation in art fairs across more than 13 countries, including ART EXPO NEW YORK and Red Dot Miami. He was awarded the Grand Prize in the Still Images Division at the Asia Digital Art Award. His works are held in the collections of the Kitasato Institute and the Nishiwaki Okanoyama Art Museum in Japan.

Takayoshi Ueda
BIOGRAPHY

Takayoshi Ueda was born in Japan, 1969 and currently lives and works in Wakayama, Japan.
Learning oil painting at an art school in Kyoto, he was captivated by the beauty of monochrom
paint software he experienced while studying there and began creating with a computer in 1994.
Attempting to break away from the general tendency of CG images to have an artificial and inorganic
feel, Ueda's artwork is dubbed “Digilo-graphy”, which started from the utilization of the texture
of hand-painted input material which is then digitally processed and combined before being
printed onto canvas, and in 2008, his art style evolved after he started making elaborate digital
collages that form different animals and plants using those same materials.
he arranged its composition according to the Japanese art style while adding Asian regional tastes
to the coloring and combined them with the Western perception of shapes and space, aiming to
form a visual image that allows the local individual artist to communicate with global audiences
on a level that transcends cultural barriers.

In addition to his digital practice, Ueda Takayoshi has continued painting, with one of his representative
bodies of work being the Spectrum Color Series (2005－2020), a collection of figurative paintings
in which each piece is defined by its own key color.
The motifs for these works are primarily drawn from urban scenes he documented in New York.
In recent years, Ueda has been developing the Visualium Series―paintings conceived as “visual
specimens.” These works utilize generative AI to source figures and objects from what he terms
the “Third World,” a new domain opened through AI generation that follows the First World of
existing reality and the Second World of human imagination and creation.
These elements are encapsulated within singular environments and materialized through oil painting,
bridging the virtual and the real.
At the core of Ueda’s practice lies a pursuit of harmony and coexistence between the digital and
the analog, the mechanical and the human.
His work may be understood as a form of visual simulation that seeks balance across these intersecting
realms.

Ueda's major exhibitions of his artwork include the 2006 solo exhibition of his earliest masterpiece
in NY as well as participation in art fairs in more than 13 countries across the U.S. and Asia, like the
Asia Digital Art Award (Awarded Still Images Division Grand Prize) at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum,
the STRICOFF Gallery group exhibit as a finalist for the ARTBOX. PROJECT New York 1.0, ART
EXPO NEW YORK, and Red Dot Miami.
His works of art are kept in the likes of Kitasato Institute and Nishiwaki Okanoyama Art Museum
in Japan.