About the Founder

Graphic and contemporary artist and app developer, recipient of 17 international art awards. Through exhibitions across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, as well as features in art books and academic journals, he creates work grounded in Japan's distinctive sense of prayer, exploring collective psychology, the cognitive world, and fundamental consciousness.

Bridging art and technology, Hirokawa continues to pursue expressions that inhabit the space between the digital and the poetic. His practice evokes a serene yet surreal world in which subtle synesthetic sensibilities and a quietly mystical inspiration coexist.

Biography

Self-taught in web design and programming since 1997, Hirokawa joined Kokuwa System Co., Ltd. in 1999 as a DTP operator. In 2002, he worked at NTT DATA Corporation as a programmer and systems engineer, contributing to core system development. In 2005, he became an independent creator and expanded his activities across web design, programming, graphic production, and interactive movie projects.

In 2011, he participated in game development as a technical artist, and in 2013 he launched an independent smartphone app business that has since surpassed 50 million cumulative downloads worldwide, with more than 3 million monthly active users. He continues to lead development, global marketing, and operations.

Since 2019, Hirokawa has resumed full-scale production of graphic art and has actively exhibited in international shows across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. His works depict a symbolic world at the intersection of human consciousness, beauty, and decay, poetically tracing the boundary between dream and reality.

Professional Experience

Founder / Lead Developer (Independent App Business), 2013–present
50M+ total downloads, 3M+ MAU. Leading development, global ASO, and business management.

Creator (Web/UX, Programming, Graphic Design), 2005–present
End-to-end UX/UI design and implementation. Frequent contributor to design publications since 2008.

Technical Artist (Game Development), 2011
Production oversight and supervision.

Programmer / Systems Engineer (NTT DATA Corporation), 2002
Design and implementation of core enterprise systems.

DTP Operator (Kokuwa System Co., Ltd.), 2000
Prepress, layout, and production.

Awards

2025–2026 – World's 14th Best Designer, DAC – Design Classifications (A' Design Award)
2025 – Award of Achievement (The Consulate of Humanitarian & Culture in Chania, Greece)
2025 – The New Great Masters in New York (Fondazione Effetto Arte)
2025 – W* Recognition (A' Design Award)
2024 – Meritorious Service to the Arts Award (Luxembourg Art Prize)
2024 – Phoenix for the Arts (Fondazione Effetto Arte)
2024 – Global Art Virtuoso Award (Contemporary Art Collectors)
2023 – Harmony for Humanity Art Prize (Contemporary Art Collectors)
2023 – Career Art Award (Fondazione Effetto Arte)
2023 – The Genius of Italy – Michelangelo International Art Prize (Fondazione Effetto Arte)
2023 – A' Design Award Golden Award (Photography & Photo Manipulation)
2022 – ITSLIQUID International Contest – 12th Edition, Honorable Mention
2022 – BEST COVER ARTIST AWARD (365 Art+ 6 Stars AWARDS)
2022 – A' Design Award Iron Award (Graphic Design)
2021 – ITSLIQUID International Contest – 11th Edition, Honorable Mention
2021 – ARTIST OF THE YEAR (ITSLIQUID Group)
2006 – Excellence Prize, Web Screensaver Category, MTV SO-ZO Competition supported by AMD

Selected Exhibitions

LA Art Show (Los Angeles), Ansan International Photo Festival (Ansan, South Korea), RenovArt Project (Matera, Italy), Rome International Art Fair (Rome), Paris International Contemporary Art Fair (Paris), CONTEMPORARY VENICE (Venice), LONDON CONTEMPORARY (London), KINTSUGI / TRACES OF DREAMS (M.A.D.S. ART GALLERY, Milan), and many more.

Selected Publications

Le Musee Plus Magazine, 365 Art+ Magazine, The Best Contemporary Masters, Imago (Galleria Tilde), ANTHOLOGY THE LAST DECADE 2015–2025, Digital Art Creators, The Luxury Collection of Contemporary Artistry, MacPeople, MdN publications, and others.

Influences

Around 1997, when I was sixteen, I found myself deeply drawn to what was then the still-new world of the internet. That encounter led me to teach myself web design. Through this online space, I was able to connect across borders with designers, programmers, and artists, and those encounters greatly broadened my perspective. They nurtured in me a way of looking at things that naturally crosses disciplines and fields.

At the same time, there was a quieter form of inheritance at work. Both of my grandfathers were miyadaiku — master carpenters involved in the construction and restoration of shrines and temples. From them, I seem to have absorbed the sense that form and space can become vessels for what cannot be seen, and that the act of working with one's hands can itself be a kind of devotion. Even during the years when I was working in fields that might appear, at first glance, to be far removed from art, this feeling continued to flow quietly at the foundation of my practice.

My path later expanded into core system development, interactive movie production, authoring books on graphic design, game development, and app development, and from 2019 onward I decisively shifted my focus back to graphic art. In late autumn of that same year, under the night sky above Kichijōji Station in Tokyo, I witnessed a mysterious ring of light. It felt like a wordless directive, almost as though someone were speaking to me in Latin, telling me to devote my lifeblood from now on to visual expression. That experience became a major turning point, propelling me into the intense creation of symbolic and dreamlike works.

I hold deep respect for the painter Leonor Fini, who maintained a free and sovereign mode of expression, and I am strongly drawn to the aesthetics of Hans Bellmer, who, despite his engineering background, created works that are both structural and poetic. I first encountered these artists through the writings of Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, whose worldview had a decisive impact on me when I was young. Among all these influences, the greatest came from a mentor I met online at the age of seventeen. He taught me that art is not something lofty or reserved for the few, but rather a natural language originally open to everyone.

Future Aspirations and Vision

My artistic aims are closely tied to the attempt to visualize the “surplus dimensions” that emerge where spirituality and science intersect. As I have engaged with general relativity, quantum mechanics, and causal set theory, while at the same time returning to the Buddhist faith cherished by my grandparents, this preoccupation has gradually taken shape within me.

Through my work, I hope to soften the divide between the sacred and the secular, and to help restore the subtle bonds between human beings and nature. By weaving together natural symbolism, philosophical reflection, and images drawn from contemporary science into visual narratives, I seek to allow the sacred dimensions that lie within us to enter into dialogue with the wider world in which we live.

In essence, I hope that my works can quietly stand as intermediaries between these multiple domains, and that encountering them may offer viewers an opportunity to touch deeper layers of both themselves and the cosmos. That, to me, is the role of my practice.

The World I Hope to Show My Children

This aspiration is also deeply personal. As the father of children with whom I now live apart, and as someone who has passed through relocations, separation, and various hardships, I have come to feel that art is a lifelong vow to entrust warmth, strength, and beauty to the next generation. Words can be clumsy at times, but a work of art can quietly become a bridge — connecting generations and languages, and reconnecting the inner worlds we carry with the outer world, even when we are far from one another.

Mobile Apps in Production

Apps actively maintained since the independent app business launched in 2013. Combined downloads exceed 50 million, with over 3 million monthly active users.

Beautiful HD Wallpapers — iOS / Android
Ukiyo-e Wallpapers — iOS / Android
Law of Attraction Everyday — iOS
Relaxing Healing — iOS

Press Kit

PDF documents available for press, exhibitions, publications, and interviews.

Artist Profile (English) PDF
Artwork Documentation PDF

Social Media

Websites

dolice.design (Official)
dolice.net (Portfolio)
dolice.base.shop (Store)
linktr.ee/masakihirokawa (Linktree)

Dolice Labs

Dolice Labs is a collection of bilingual knowledge bases covering the latest in AI technology.

Claude Lab — Claude AI
Gemini Lab — Google Gemini
Antigravity Lab — Google Antigravity
Rork Lab — Rork (App Development)

Last updated: May 2026