BIOGRAPHY
Dohshu Tokumoto is an artist and Shin Buddhist priest based in Tsuruga, in Japan’s Hokuriku region.
Raised within the Shin Izumoji-ha tradition, Tokumoto trained from childhood at Gōshō-ji, its head temple, and was ordained at the age of ten. He currently serves as vice-resident priest of Ryōkaku-ji. He studied social theory and cultural studies at Keio University before receiving a Graduate Diploma in History of Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is currently pursuing an MA in Contemporary Art Theory.
Working from within Japanese Buddhism, where hereditary temple lineages, local communities, the modern nation-state’s reorganisation of religious institutions, and memories of Buddhist persecution intersect, Tokumoto examines how forms of faith in Japan have resided in, been inherited through, suppressed within, and transformed by the house, the land, the body, and the voice.
Moving away from the doctrinal and mythological functions traditionally assigned to religious art, his practice reconstructs spatial, gestural, sonic, and temporal forms rooted in Buddhist ritual. Across installation, performance, and sonic fiction, he creates sites where Japanese history, memory, faith, and embodied practice converge.
EDUCATION
Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK — MA Contemporary Art Theory, expected 2026
Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK — Graduate Diploma in History of Art, 2024
Keio University Graduate School of Media Design, Tokyo, Japan — Master of Media Design, 2015
Keio University, Tokyo, Japan — BA in Environment and Information Studies, 2013
AWARDS
The 29th Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art, Kawasaki, Japan — Selected, 2026
TOKYO MIDTOWN AWARD 2026, Tokyo, Japan — Shortlisted, 2026
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
The 29th Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art Exhibition, Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki, Japan — 2026
Skeleton of Religious Art ०, Miyukiyama Ryōkaku-ji Temple, Shinshū Izumoji-ha, Fukui, Japan — 2025
SELECTED BUDDHIST LITURGICAL PRACTICE
Izumoji-ha Commemorative Service for the 850th Anniversary of Shinran Shōnin’s Birth, Gōshō-ji, Fukui, Japan — 2026
Commemorative Service for the 800th Anniversary of the Founding of Jōdo Shinshū, Hongwan-ji, Kyoto, Japan — 2023
Izumoji-ha Dentō Hōkoku Service, Gōshō-ji, Fukui, Japan — 2015
