Artist Hajime Sorayama, whom his peer artists call a cross between Norman Rockwell and Salvador Dalí or an imaginative modern day Vargas, is as close as one comes to modern Shunga. Sorayama’s robotic works are in permanent collections of MoMA and the Smithsonian Institution as well as in the private WEAM Museum collections.

Hajime Sorayama was born in 1947 in Imabari, Ehime prefecture, Japan. He received his basic education at Imabari Kita High School. In 1965 he was admitted to the Shikoku Gakuin University, where he began to study Greek and English literature. In 1967, after the publication of his first work, Pink Journal, he transferred to Tokyo’s Chuo Art School where he began to study art.

In 1985, Sorayama published the video “Illustration Video,” his first work apart from the books of illustrations… His work also includes graphics in the movies Brain Dead (1992), Timecop (1994) and Space Trucker (1995), the design of trading cards, limited edition prints, CD Roms, art exhibitions and the initial industrial design for Sony’s AIBO robotic pet, as well as the cover art for Aerosmith’s 2001 album: Just Push Play.

Sorayama’s work Sexy Robot, published by Genko-sha in 1983, made his organic robotic forms famous around the world. For the work, he used ideas from pin-up art, which in the book then appear as chrome-plated gynoids in suggestive poses. His next book, Pin-up (Graphic-sha, 1984), continued in the same line. A number of his other works similarly revolve around figures in suggestive poses, including highly realistic depictions in latex and leather.

Sorayama released a new book “Master Works” in early 2010, followed by another erotica book, “Vibrant Vixens” in May 2011. He worked with movie makers in Hollywood on fantasy science fiction projects. During 2012 to 2013, Sorayama worked on 3 notable new projects with American fashion designer Marc Ecko. In 2013 to 2014, a tribute art book entitled “Star Wars Art Concept” found famous moviemaker George Lucas engaging Sorayama to create a spread of Twi’lek and droid fantasy Star Wars figures at about the time Lucas’ firm LucasFilm was sold to Disney.

Instead of adding more paint to a canvas Sorayama actually erases back to the original canvas, everything is built up slowly in transparent layers then erased back to achieve the highlight from the white of the canvas as much as possible, a time consuming process but incredibly stunning once achieved.