Short Bio Ryo Kato is a contemporary artist living in Berlin, Germany. He received from 1995 to 1998 lessons in drawing and painting at high school and in private schools in Okayama. After graduating from high school, he went to Paris for nine months and then moved to Berlin. In 2001 he began studying at the Berlin University of the Arts and was in Wolfgang Petrick's class . As a master student , he moved to Daniel Richter's class in 2005 . In 2006 he completed his studies as a master class student. During his studies he had his first exhibitions in Germany. In 2010 he took part in an art fair for the first time. At Art Karlsruhehis pictures were exhibited as a solo show. In 2012, he was awarded first place in the Ishi Prize in Japan, and in 2013 one of his pictures was taken at the Okayama Prefecture Museum. In 2015 the Prefecture Museum bought another work. He is a member of the Darmstadt Secession and was awarded its sponsorship award. Artist Ryo Kato ranks globally number 12,249 and within Japan 248 by Artfacts. By developing his own style of painting, he hopes to articulate his political message, which is mainly inspired by the perception that the relationship between humans and their environment has turned into a one sided exploitation, likely to end in disaster. Even though I have known Ryo for some years, it was this close relationship between content and its expression so often painfully absent from contemporary art, which provided the incentive for conducting this interview.