January 2019), was his first institutional solo exhibition in New York and was met with all-around praise by art critics and publications, from The New York Times and The Brooklyn Rail, to Hyperallergic and The Eye of Photography. Personal life Morimura presently lives and works in his native Osaka, and he is married to Toshimi Takahara. Style, content, and themes Style and content As both a performance and appropriation artist, Morimura's art is defined by his assumption of the identities of famous artists, artwork subjects, historical figures, and popular culture icons. In order to evoke the identity of his respective roles, Morimura recreates these images through extensive makeup and props before situating them in settings with which they would be associated or locations that are completely foreign to their identity. In Vermeer Study: A Great Story out of the Corner of a Small Room (2004), the content is a faithful reproduction of the interior space and figures from Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer's The Art of Painting (1666–1668). When he recreates subjects from paintings, Morimura replicates the precise surface details and brushstroke textures inherent in the original works. Based on Post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh's renowned Self-Portrait (1889), Morimura's face is covered in splotches and remnants of golden yellow paint while his clothing contains mixtures of green and blue paint that complements the swirling blue-green curved forms behind him; this photographic staging echoes van Gogh's painterly impasto technique. Often, art historians and critics have described his self-portraits as a form of parody. The photograph Self-Portrait: White Marilyn 2 (1996) is regularly cited as an example of this characterization as Morimura wears a blonde wig and white dress that is visually reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe's hairstyle and wardrobe while he reenacts her famous scene from The Seven Year Itch (1955) when her character embarrassingly attempts to hold down her dress as it blows above her knees. Themes Identity exploration is the main, overarching theme that predominates the scope of Morimura's art, and it encompasses an analysis of multiple identities that often intersect within works: ethnicity, nationality, gender & sexuality, race, etc. In his Actress series (1994 – 1996), Morimura depicted himself as a number of American and European actresses: Audrey Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Jodie Foster, Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, et al. This series challenged the notions of the male gaze as Morimura purposefully inserts his male Japanese identity into photographic recreations of