Hiroyuki Doi

Hiroyuki Doi produces elaborate ink drawings brimming with tiny circles that seem to move and pulse. Self-taught, Doi has been making these absorbing vortexes since the 1980s, but it wasn’t until 2001 that his work gained popularity. That year, the late dealer and champion of outsider art Phyllis Kind brought his work to the ninth annual Outsider Art Fair. More of his drawings were exhibited at the American Folk Art Museum’s “Obsessive Drawing” show in 2005. Doi began drawing after the death of his younger brother, finding a form of therapy and escape in art. He renders his compositions with a Pilot drawing pen, creating precise markings on washi paper that evoke forms of all scales, from molecular organisms to the cosmos. One of his largest drawings, Hope for the Earth, was created to commemorate those who died in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.