A ceramic madman, oil painter and recluse, Kurouemon is as eccentric as his pottery predicts.  Born in Fukui prefecture in 1955 Kurouemon was a painter from youth, he began his studies under Fujita Jurouemon in 1976, and moved to study also under Toda Soshiro.  Invited to the Soviet Union he spent time there and in Sakhalin in the 80s, returning to Japan to build his own kiln in 1987.  He was the feature of a major exhibition in Germany in 2004, but aside from a few small exhibitions held in Japan (which quickly sell out) he remains a humble artist holed up in his mountain hermitage and works by him are not easy to acquire.