Aya Takano is a contemporary Japanese artist whose work is closely associated with the Superflat movement and the visual language of manga. Educated at Tama Art University in Tokyo, she later worked as an assistant to Takashi Murakami, the founder of Superflat, an experience that significantly shaped her artistic development. Takano’s practice belongs to a postmodern lineage in Japanese art that appropriates popular visual forms to articulate complex perspectives on contemporary life, particularly around identity, sexuality, and fantasy. Her work is represented in major public and private collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Rubell Family Collection, Miami. She lives and works between Kyoto and Tokyo.