Koichi Sato is a self-taught New York City based artist originally born in Tokyo in 1974. Having grown up influenced by the abundance of images in television and sports, his paintings generally focus on the playful reinvention of these images in bold stylization, pattern, and color. He is fascinated with old American magazines, often using photos from these as primary influences for his intriguing and downright funny paintings. His portraits are works of positivity and happiness that shine a fresh and friendly perspective on images of people that one may be accustomed to overlooking. This sense of happiness made apparent in the comically stylized faces (often painted purposely square and disproportionate, with an intense grin) and exaggerated bodies is echoed in Sato’s celebratory use of color and pattern. The patterns in the background of Sato’s group portraits help to flatten the portraits further, crowding the group to the foreground. The flatness echoes the flatness evoked in a photograph on a magazine page, his main source material.