Reika Nakayama was born in Osaka, Japan in 1974. She graduated from The Department of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts in 2000. Since 2003, she has studied in Mexico as an exchange student. The life and climate of Mexico have a great influence on Nakayama's artistic expression, and her style is also known as Magic Realism. It is difficult to distinguish between reality and illusion in Nakayama's work, creating a strange sense of incongruity without distance, as if it were a mysterious dream.

She has won the top prize in VOCA 2011. Her exhibitions include: a series of solo exhibitions held at Mori Yu Gallery, "Garden of Painting -Japanese Art of the 00s'' (The National Museum of Art,Osaka, 2010), and "VOCA 2011 - Artists on New Plain" (The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, 2011), "Portraits" (Galeria Ramón Alva de la Canal, Mexico, 2019), etc.