Sleepless Kao

Under the Mt.Fuji - born illustrator and artist now based in Vancouver. She studied fashion illustration in Tokyo and later expanded her practice while living in San Francisco and Hong Kong.

Her work creates a dreamlike universe filled with whimsical creatures and tender spirits. Within vast, open spaces, small connections and encounters gently appear—like constellations telling quiet stories of life.

Her art has been shown internationally, including at Space Yui (Tokyo), gallery 1 (Japan), Giant Robot, Little Otsu, and SOMARTS (San Francisco), Compound Gallery (Portland), and Helen Pitt Gallery (Vancouver). In 2007, her animated short Duet was screened at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival and the Asian American International Film Festival in New York.

From 2014 to 2025, Kao taught young artists (ages 16–19) in a scholarship program sponsored by Electronic Arts (EA), a world-leading video game company. She also studied new media design and web development at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), further broadening her creative practice.

Currently, she is working on a children’s book with Simply Read Books.