Chiharu Shiota
(1972)

Chiharu Shiota

Endless Line

Red thread on canvas
140 x 80 cm (55 ¹/₈ x 31 ¹/₂ inches)

Chiharu Shiota

biography

Born in Osaka, Japan in 1972, Chiharu Shiota is now an internationally recognised artist and performer based in Berlin. Her formal art education started at Kyoto Seika University, where she studied oil painting. Shiota then spent her exchange year enrolled at the Australian National School of Art, before moving to Germany to complete her education at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig and Universität der Künste. It was during these years in Berlin that she met and studied under the guidance of world-celebrated performance artist Marina Abramovic.

While her repertoire today is broad, engaging with several mediums that include sculpture, paper, and performance, it’s her complex thread-work installations that have gained her widespread acclaim. Through their tangled intricacy and large scale, she seeks to represent the complex nature of humanity and relationships.

Reflective of her international prestige, the artist has been exhibiting world-wide for years and in 2015, was offered the privilege of representing Japan in the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2026, Southbank Centre, London, is holding a solo exhibition of her work, titled 'Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life'.

Chiharu Shiota

biography