Yuichi Hirako was born in Okayama Prefecture, Japan in 1982. He graduated from the Wimbledon College of Art, UK in 2006. He currently works and lives in Tokyo, Japan. Yuichi's art practice is centered on the coexistence of humans and nature with each painting posed as a "question" that the artist asks about nature. Yuichi's purest works, painted in oil, depicts this theme upon an annual ring which details the significance of the forest and nature in Japanese history and religion, namely the belief that all things are spiritual. The works are brightly colored and delicately composed, with unconventional lines and colors, delineating rich elements and details, as if they were elaborately set up for a stage play. In recent years, he has been active on the international art scene and has held exhibitions in Denmark, The Netherland, France, the USA, and Singapore.
The series of work " Botanical Series" was derived from his experience studying in the UK. In London, artificial gardens are prevalent, from parks, museums and art galleries to home balconies, all of which have been carefully manicured with greenery. Yuichi Hirako was inspired by the love for these "artificial natural environments" by the local city dwellers, as compared to the "nature-made natural environment" of Okayama Prefecture in Japan, where he was born and raised in the woods and hills. He fuses these two phenomena in his works. The dense foliage of the trees, the wildly curved branches of the trunks, and the colorful lines of flowers show the natural environment in its entirety. The delicate man-made objects such as books, vases, potted plants, musical instruments, and wooden boats are embellished within the natural scenery of the forest and the artificial garden-like landscape. Yuichi Hirako combines the elements of "natural" and "artificial" in his works, thus re-examining the blurred relationship between people and plants in the modern city.
Yuichi Hirako has exhibited extensively including solo exhibition Inheritance, Metamorphosis, Rebirth, Nerima Art Museum, Tokyo (2022); Footprints, KOTARO NUKAGA, Tokyo (2022), Fallen Leaves, BACK_Y, Taipei (2022), Mount Mariana, Gallery Baton, Seoul (2021); Growth Rings, Warehouse Gallery, Hong Kong (2020); Dandelion, Zerp Galerie, Rotterdam (2019); BLOOM, YIRI ARTS, Taipei (2018). His work has also been featured in exhibition in Powerlong Museum (2021), Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2010), and Museum of Modern Art, Gunma (2010). Among the museums holding his works are the Powerlong Museum in China, Lisser Art Museum, AkzoNobel Art Foundation in Netherlands, and Jean Pigozzi Collection in Switzerland.