Norihito Yoshimoto moved from Toyama to Takayama when he was fifteen years old due to his parents’ work. Although he was interested in design and art while he was living in Toyama, he also wanted to study cultural sociology. He decided to attend a university to study this subject. When he turned twenty, his parents bought a place—currently Norihito’s gallery—and started selling kimonos.

Yoshimoto’s work represents the “wa-modern (Japanese modern)” artistic style. His art pieces, such as a quiet scene portraying Takayama’s street of historical buildings covered in snow and a landscape of cherry blossoms petals fluttering and falling on a bridge along a river in spring, are delicate and uniquely distorted. They attract attention from people living both inside and outside Japan.

Yoshitomo comments, “I wasn’t sure why my parents decided to buy the shop. When I graduated from my university, I had no choice but to take over the family business (lol). But I had never studied business, so I struggled to keep it going. I began to dye fabrics.”
“I had actually never studied fabric dyeing either. I was unable to successfully dye fabrics. Then, I realized that the patterns for fabric dyeing are similar to papercutting, so I decided to try papercutting. I created a piece, framed it and put it on the shop wall. To my surprise, it sold within an hour! I thought, ‘Oh wow, someone wants this!’ I wanted to continue papercutting.”

“I don’t really think that I should have been called an artist back then. I was just trying to do everything I could to keep the shop open. But I have always been interested in design, so I felt like I finally found what I wanted to do. Since then, I have been creating papercut pieces every day,” adds Yoshitomo.