Born in Osaka, Japan, Takeshi made his way to the Bay Area as a young man in 1972 to study art at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he received both his BFA and MFA. Influenced by Matisse, Renoir, Manet, and Diebenkorn, Takeshi spent many years seeking to define his own style. He experimented with the unknown, searching for an underlying universal truth in his paintings. His sojourn has led him to this current body of work where overlaid brushstrokes convey the many colors of a single humanity.