Ryo Ogawa, known as RoamCouch, was born in Gifu Prefecture in 1976. He is a street artist. Influenced by Japanese manga, he began drawing as a child and started working as a designer at the age of 18. Later, he was diagnosed with a serious illness, which made him rethink his life and career and decide to become an artist.

In 2011, now calling himself “RoamCouch”, he began his transition to being a full-time artist. He uses over 50 layers of hand-cut stencils to create elaborate and romantic artworks that have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. His detailed and rich stencil paintings have completely changed the typical image of stencil art. In 2014, he held his first solo exhibition in New York titled “A Beautiful Life” and achieved the incredible feat of selling out his entire collection.

Since 2014, he has launched a project called the “Emotional Bridge Project” and has been independently painting murals with the aim of revitalizing his hometown. The aim is to attract art fans to his hometown by making his works public. He calls his new style “Neo-ukiyo-e” and fuses stencil art with Mino washi paper to create works that vividly express modern ukiyo-e.

He has been invited to hold solo exhibitions in major cities around the world, including Paris, London, Rome, New York, Dubai, and Munich. He has also created several murals overseas.

In addition, he has been actively releasing silkscreen prints based in New York and Brooklyn. All of the approximately 20 or so works he has released so far have sold out immediately, and he continues to achieve astonishing results worldwide as a Japanese artist.

He has also collaborated with many top overseas artists (Martin Whatson, Penny, Dotmasters, etc.), becoming a pioneer in releasing collaborative pieces.
He is currently continuing his collaboration with Jeff Gillette, the original creator of Banksy’s Dismaland.

As a collaboration with a Japanese company, he provided the main art for the commercial created when Toshiba Memory changed its name to KIOXIA. The artist himself also appeared in the commercial.
He was also the first Tsuburaya Productions official to be authorized as the sole artist to collaborate with the original Ultraman, and has produced several works.