Born in Osaka in 1978 and now active in Tokyo, Takuma Kamine graduated with a BA of Fine Arts from the Painting Department at Tokyo Zokei University. He currently holds a position there as a part-time instructor of Fine Art.

Artist creates installations based on interpretations of gods and spirits that appear in the traditional Buddhist world. He breathes new life into archaic figures and brings them in line with the contemporary by recreating them as three-dimensional “guardian” figures that encompass spirituality. Takuma Kamine imbibes his figurines with an energy similar to that harbored by Buddha statues, combining this with his aesthetic interest in science fiction. He uses elements such as space suits and robotics to evolve new types of statue and create guardians that consist of modern parts but are settled with the presence of Buddha.

When Takuma Kamine first encountered the images of Buddhist guardian deities as a child, he was filled with awe and fear. As a working artist now, he has crystallized those initial emotions into figures which borrow elements from Japanese animation and comics. They are not devotional pieces, nor are they facsimiles of extant Buddhist iconography; rather, Kamine’s exhaustive studies of Buddhist scriptures and fascination with robotic protectors, such as gundams, informed these deeply personal iterations.

Kamine has shown his art in solo exhibitions in Japan, the United States, and group exhibitions in China, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. His artistic practice won him the Hirake Goma! Vol. 2 Birth Art Award in 2004 and the 4th MOVE Art Management Jury Prize in 2006.