Takefumi Hori

Takefumi Hori is a Japanese-born abstract painter based in Brooklyn, New York, known for luminous paintings in 12-, 18-, and 24-karat gold leaf. Born in Tokyo in 1978, he studied classical and contemporary Japanese calligraphy before moving to New York in 2004, and he began his signature gold leaf practice in 2009 after seeing gold ornament spanning thousands of years and dozens of cultures at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work is in collections including Claridge's Hotel in London, and it has been shown at VOLTA Basel, Art Central Hong Kong, the London Art Fair, and the Fuller Craft Museum.

Hori layers gold acrylic, gold leaf, and tinted gel, scratching, cutting, and sanding between layers so each painting shifts with the light and the viewing angle. Following calligraphy, he places visual weight in the lower left and builds movement toward the upper right, merging Eastern tradition with Western abstraction. His Circle series is widely considered the core of his work, and his newer Landscape series is inspired by the skies of New York and Tokyo. Studio E Gallery in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, represents Takefumi Hori.