Hajime Sorayama
b. 1947, Japan
Japanese born, Hajime Sorayama graduated in 1969 from Chubi Central Art School in Tokyo. He started his career in advertising before freelancing in Hollywood, where he helped to produce visuals for sci-fi films. His works of female images, pursuing of robot and eroticism are well known both inside and outside of Japan.
He is one of the rare artists acclaimed at the same time by the most prestigious institutions of the art world, as well as by renowned Haute-Couture houses, erotic publications and multinational companies specialized in new technologies.
Sorayama's extensive oeuvre that centers upon an on-going pursuit for beauty regarding the human body and the machine has continued to receive high international acclaim, and his signature body of work entitled, the 'Sexy Robot' series (1978-) had served to established his world-wide reputation. Such depictions that integrate the aesthetic beauty of the female body into the context of the robot had come to present a significant influence on the subsequent formulation of robotic imagery. In 1999, he won the Good Design Award (Ministry of Trade and Industry) and the Media Arts Festival Grand Prize (Agency of Cultural Affairs) for his work with Sony on the concept design for their entertainment robot 'AIBO.'
Sorayama lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. His works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.