Born on October 13, 1926, and passed in 2002, Kazuo Nakamura was an influential Japanese Canadian artist and one of the co-founders of Painters Eleven. Many of Nakamura's works involve his fascination with science, time, and space, exploring these themes through landscape paintings and abstract compositions. Born in Vancouver, he first studied art at the Vancouver Technical Secondary School. During World War II, when Nakamura was just a teenager, he was one of 22,000 Japanese Canadians interned at incarceration camps. While there, he continued to produce artwork, citing it as an escape from the cruel conditions of the camp. His work can be permanently found in the collection at the Ontario Provincial Queen's Park Complex and Lester Pearson International Airport. Nakamura's work has also toured London (UK), Paris and Madrid from 1983 to 1984. He was also made an honorary fellow at OCAD University in 2000, and made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.