Junko Chodos (born 1939) is a contemporary artist born and educated in Japan and residing in the United States since 1968. Her works represent a wide variety of techniques and styles, ranging from pencil, pen, and collage, to works done with acrylic. Chodos has had solo exhibitions featured at the Tokyo Central Museum, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the USC Pacific Asia Museum, the Fresno Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art in St. Louis, and numerous other museums and galleries in Japan and in the United States. Life and career Junko Chodos was born Junko Takahashi in Tokyo, Japan, in 1939. Her experience during World War II affected her later life and art. She grew up in a household where Shinto, Buddhism and Christianity were strong influences. She was a member of the first post-war generation of "commoners" allowed to attend the Gakushūin, the Imperial school. Chodos studied at Tokyo's Waseda University from 1963-1968. She graduated with a BA in Art History and Philosophy. At Waseda, she studied under Professor Shigeo Ueda, noted translator of Martin Buber into Japanese, and took an interest in his writings of philosophy. After leaving Japan in 1968, Chodos migrated to California, calling herself a "spiritual refugee". She then attended the State University of New York, Buffalo. Later, in 1971 she married Rafael Chodos, a lawyer and author in biblical studies and the aesthetics of fine art. In an article in the Winter 2003 issue of CrossCurrents, Chodos wrote: To seek justice, to be courageous, to be ethical in other words, to choose rational universal standards over loyalty towards the group is to be a traitor in Japan, and these individuals break the biggest taboos of the totalitarian society. I experienced these aspects of Japanese society as a form of persecution and as a threat to my own integrity. That is why I left Japan and became a spiritual refugee. As Junko Chodos developed her style. she coined the term Centripetal Art to describe the philosophical basis of her art, which she defined as art created by an artist who strives towards her center and encounters divine presence there. Exhibitions and Publications Chodos' solo exhibit from 1995 "In the Forest of Amida Budda" was described by William Wilson in the Los Angeles Times as a "small but impressive solo." This exhibition featured works that appeared similar to Japanese scrolls. Chodos painted on