Satoru Aoyama (b. 1973, Tokyo, Japan) is a contemporary artist whose work primarily investigates labour, technology, memory, and the changing value of human creativity through the traditional craft of embroidery. Aoyama studied textiles at Goldsmiths College, University of London and completed an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he began to refine a practice that merges meticulous hand‑driven processes with critical social inquiry. Central to his work is the use of an industrial Singer sewing machine, a now‑obsolete technology that he continues to operate as both a tool and a conceptual anchor. Through dense stitched images and embroidered surfaces, Aoyama explores how manual labour, mechanisation, and cultural production intersect, questioning the ways in which contemporary society values time, visibility, and the labour of bodies and machines.
Aoyama’s thematic focus stretches across disappearance, visibility, and forgotten or overlooked aspects of social life. His works often elevate the unseen — from the fading traditions of manual craft to subtle traces of everyday existence — transforming ephemeral or marginal motifs into monuments of attention and remembrance. By embroidering on diverse surfaces, including vintage prints and everyday textiles, he juxtaposes meticulous craftsmanship with critical reflection on capitalism, memory, and individual agency in an age of automation and rapid change. These concerns resonate across his body of work, revealing both historical references and urgent contemporary commentary.
Aoyama’s work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Japan and internationally, marking his presence within contemporary art dialogues that bridge craft, labour, and institutional critique. Recent major exhibitions include his 2024 solo show “Do you believe in ‘Forever’?” at Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo and the museum survey “A Boy Who Sews Forever” at the Meguro Museum of Art, which offered a comprehensive view of his practice and creative methods. He has also shown notable solo projects such as “The Lonely Labourer” at Mizuma Art Gallery (2019) and “News From Nowhere” (2017). Group presentations have included “Nine Profiles: 1935→2025” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2025 and large‑scale exhibitions that examine labour and material culture, situating his work within broader explorations of contemporary society.