"My painting skills are a gift from my dad," says artist Masaya Nakayama. "I take that very seriously."

Based in Brooklyn for the past seven years, Nakayama's artistic career has been focused primarily in the United States, New York in particular, but his work, he says, is rooted in his Osaka identity and traditional Japanese painting techniques.

Nakayama's father, a Japanese chef, was a painter in his youth and likewise, Nakayama developed an interest in art and painting at a young age. He went to Osaka University of Arts, where he studied nihonga (Japanese painting), using washi paper or silk, sumi ink and pigments suspended in glue.