Tokihiro Sato was born in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan in 1957. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1981 and a Master of Fine Arts from the same institution in 1983. Sato has been participating in group and solo exhibitions worldwide since the early 1980s and his work is represented in public collections in the USA, Australia and Japan. Although originally trained as a sculptor, today he is considered one of Japan's most innovative photographers.

Of the 'Breath-graph' series Sato has said:

At present, my work involves responding to the subtle connections present in the ordinary scenes I find in urban spaces or while travelling, and then rendering the very time I spend standing and breathing in these places as art. Through the triangular tension determined by the self as subject, the encountered space, and the camera as recording device, I attempt to make visual the physical realities inherent in the relationship between myself and my environment.¹

Endnote

1. Breath-graph: Tokihiro Sato [exhibition catalogue],  Gallery Lunami/Gallery Surge, Tokyo, 1991.