Born in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1931. Graduated from Tokyo University of Education in 1954. He joined the “Democratic Artists Association,” whose members included Ei-Q, and started out as an artist in the avant-garde art trend that emerged in the postwar art world.

In 1958, he moved to New York, where he continued his search for the true avant-garde while interacting with local artists, and joined the “Fluxus” movement that arose in the 1960s. Together with artists from around the world, including Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik, he has created works that transcend the boundaries between everyday life and art, and transcend genres. In 1963, he exhibited a work using the spectral colors of the rainbow in a solo exhibition. His participation in the 1966 Venice Biennale exhibition established his reputation as the “Rainbow Man.” Since then, he has consistently used a variety of motifs, including human figures, to express them all within the rainbow spectrum.

Space was Ay-O’s entry for the Yomiuri Independents exhibition the same year. We can see the beginnings of the expressions seen in his “Animated Painting” series, which he created after moving to the U.S., in which he uses mineral pigments to paint, one stroke at a time, on Japanese paper, dots of color that move like living things.