Taro Award Winner Is Youngest Ever at 17

Chifu Onishi is a 17-year-old painter primarily working in oils. A junior attending high school in Osaka, Onishi creates bold and expressive paintings that often emphasize the shape of the human form through light, shadow and color. During a four-month period when schools were shut down last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Onishi created a series of four artworks that have now won the Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art, making Onishi the youngest recipient over of one of Japan’s most prestigious art awards.