Ryosuke Shiomi

Ryosuke Shiomi was born in 1989 in Osaka, Japan. He trained in metalsmithing at Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music), completing a Master of Metal-Smith degree in 2016, and later returned to the school as a part-time lecturer in its Metal Hammering Studio, Faculty of Fine Arts, from 2021.

His work centers on elaborate armor-form sculptures built from copper, iron, brass, leather, string, lacquer, and cypress wood, often combining the silhouette of samurai armor with animal forms such as wolves, eagles, and boars. As a student he received the Mitsubishi Estate Award and the Fujino Award at the 62nd Tokyo University of the Arts Graduation Works Exhibition in 2013. He was later selected as a candidate for the 22nd Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art, exhibited at the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art in Kawasaki in 2019, a recognition tied to Japan's leading prize for experimental contemporary art.

Through the 2020s his work appeared in a series of institutional and festival settings in Japan, including the Mitsukoshi x Geidai Summer Festival of Art at Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi in 2020, "Sozaitensei, Beyond the Material" at The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, in 2021, KOGEI Next at Roppongi Hills in 2022, and BIWAKO BIENNALE in both 2022 and 2025. He continues to live and work in Japan, describing himself on his own website as an "Artist of Metal-Smith" who currently balances studio practice with part-time university teaching.

No verbatim, attributable critical commentary from a named critic in a major outlet could be confirmed for Shiomi as of this profile. His public recognition to date has come primarily through institutional selection rather than published criticism: the Taro Okamoto Award process placed him among a small group of recognized contemporary artists in 2019, and his inclusion in BIWAKO BIENNALE and in KOGEI Next situates him within Japan's contemporary kogei (craft) revival, which reframes traditional materials and techniques as contemporary sculptural practice. Christie's own sale materials for "Anime Starts Here" position his armor works as a contemporary continuation of the samurai motif for a subculture-collecting audience, though this is promotional and curatorial framing rather than independent criticism.

Shiomi's auction record is Wolf and Armor (2019), which sold for USD 698,500 in Christie's online sale "Anime Starts Here: Japanese Subculture Reimagines Tradition," which ran 18 to 31 March 2026 and closed 31 March 2026 in New York, as the top lot of that sale. Christie's described the result as a world record for the artist. No other public auction results for Shiomi could be confirmed, so his market to date rests on this single recorded transaction rather than a broad secondary market. No current gallery representation and no museum collection holding of his work could be confirmed as of this profile.

Shiomi is a young, living artist with a single well-documented auction result, the USD 698,500 sale of Wolf and Armor at Christie's New York in March 2026, and otherwise thin public sales history. There is no catalogue raisonne, no confirmed gallery representation, and no confirmed museum collection holding, so provenance and authenticity should be checked directly against the artist's own documentation and against the specific auction house catalogue entry for any work under consideration. Auction and press records alternate between the family-name-first form "Shiomi Ryosuke" and the Western-order "Ryosuke Shiomi," so collectors searching sale databases should check both forms. Given the small number of public transactions, any single sale result should be treated as an early data point rather than an established price trend.