Meet the 81-year-old Japanese artist who paints with rice, not brushes

Eighty-one-year-old Tokio Nakano creates giant artworks in his family’s rice paddies in Nasushiobara, Japan, using eight different rice varieties instead of paint, according to SoraNews24. The process begins with a blueprint sketch based on the field’s size and viewing angle, followed by selecting rice varieties for their leaf colours and growth speeds.

Nakano then projects the design onto the field at night to mark out planting zones by hand, a step he describes as requiring enormous precision. Finally, his whole family plants each rice seedling individually, a slow and physically demanding process.

The Nakano family has spent sixteen years turning their fields into public art, in Tochigi Prefecture’s northern Kanto region north of Tokyo. This year’s main design, unveiled on 18 June, honours local singer Rie Utagokoro and Chika Ozeki, the Meiji-era woman who inspired a character in NHK’s drama “Kaze, Kaoru.”

A second art site opened on 1 July for the first time in the project’s history, featuring comedian duos Ujikoji and Kaminari. The artwork remains visible until the first frost of the season, thanks to a second rice crop that grows after the September harvest.