Yuya Hashizume was born in 1983 in Okayama, and currently lives and works in Tokyo. Illustrator Yuya Hashizume creates silkscreen prints and acrylic paintings depicting cartoon figures caught in moments of vulnerability. Hashizume became known for his “eyewater” series, which portrays adolescents with single tears running down their faces. Hashizume favors bold lines and simple, flat planes of color, a style that reflects his past work in advertising and which also focuses attention on his subjects’ facial expressions. Hashizume’s illustrations explore themes like the artifice of intimacy and the suppression of sadness in a hyper-paced world. While best known for his two-dimensional works, Hashizume has also created life-size sculptures of his lonely archetypes.