Sayaka Maruyama is a Japaneese photographer based in London

Sayaka Maruyama was born in Japan. At the age of 12 she moved to Holland with her family and that 3-year-stay in different culture influenced her in many ways especially in terms of art education.

After graduated from Art University in Tokyo, Japan, she been working as a conceptual artist called 'NEON O'CLOCK WORKS' with Tomihiro Kono. She did several exhibitions of photography and installations as NEON O'CLOCK WORKS in Tokyo and their photography book 'KRAGENEIDECHSE' was published from studio parabolica in 2007.

It was not so long after she moved to London in 2007 when her interest in photography became much stronger. Since then she began to work as a photographer.

The photography series by Neon O'clock Works was exhibited in some galleries in London such as Soho gallery, Claire de Rouen Books, etc.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Sayaka Maruyama's practice traverses the mediums of photography, film, drawings, installation and performance. Drawing on classical Japanese references and Surrealist motifs, her work explores contradictory contemporary understandings of Japanese notions of beauty, from both Western and Eastern perspectives. Maruyama primarily gained notoriety for her Japan Avant-Garde series, in which the artist intertwined digitally manipulated images with elements of paper collage and watercolour paint to create intricate, multi-layered imagery, extolling a sense of beauty.
Maruyama was born in Japan in 1983, and graduated from the Art University of Japan in 2005, when she began her renowned Neon O'Clock Works project. Her first monograph, entitled Krageneidechse, was published in 2007, the year she moved to London. Maruyama has exhibited widely in London and Tokyo, and her images have been published in periodicals including the British Journal of Photography, Silvershotz magazine, the Financial Times Magazine and Eyemazing.

http://www.sayakamaruyama.com/