This Japanese painter, born in Kyoto, has been living and working in Paris for more than 30 years. He's a figurative, paints in gouache, engraves, draws, sculpts, paints stage decor, and his works are very free in style, spontaneous with the form springing from the movement. Undoubtedly influenced by Chinese calligraphy, he enlivened the dark backgrounds of his early works, with delicate graffitte or slender symbols. He tends to use bright, primary colours applied in flat bands, outlined with black or white. Always present in his work, whether overt or impicit, is the haunting theme of the human being in the middle of the cosmos. He painted the Festival poster for this year, 2000 and also designed the poster for the 1993 edition.