Elation was almost palpable at the opening of "The Great Circus," Tomoo Gokita's impressive first museum solo exhibition at Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art in Chiba. For many in attendance — not the least Gokita himself — that he would be the subject of such attention was a coup. The handsome 45-year-old, who frequently expresses his love for beer and professional wrestling, and who still lives within a five-minute walk from his parents' house in Chofu, confessed, "I never imagined this would happen." For the last decade or so that he has been painting seriously, he has been all but ignored by the Japanese art world, which sees him, in his own words, "As that guy who designs T-shirts."

In a 2000 interview in Kokoku Hihyo magazine, Gokita, who first gained recognition in Tokyo's subculture scene of the 1990s, said he still considered himself, with notable ambivalence, an illustrator. He likened the relationship between fine artists and illustrators to that of martial artists and professional wrestlers. "These days, though, wrestlers beat martial artists in MMA matches," he noted. "If I could do that in art, then I'm fine being an illustrator."

That statement proved prophetic. Though he is an unlikely successor to the New York school of neo-expressionism of the 1980s, in January he held a sold-out solo exhibition at New York's esteemed Mary Boone Gallery, which represented that scene's biggest painters, such as Julian Schnabel, whom Gokita also lists as early influences.