Tomoko Kinoshita was born in Osaka, Japan in 1975. Due to her mother’s schizophrenia, she was adopted by a family in a rural village in Hokkaido, close to the sea and mountains. She spent most of her childhood indoors, drawing. Her uncle introduced her to the 35mm film camera. After the death of her adoptive parents during her teenage years, she sought for means of self-expression by writing a diary and taking self-portraits in black and white.

In 1998, she moved to London, UK and started her formal education in photography. She produced a set of images titled “24” with self-portraits and texts. In 2001, she became a finalist in a competition held by P.U.R.E. Magazine.

In 2002, her solo exhibitions were held in London, Hamburg, Prague and Barcelona. Her main themes were identity, nature and abstraction. In 2005 and 2007, she was selected as an artist to create an outdoor installation for an art festival, Hafensafari 3 and Hafensafari 5, in Hamburg, Germany.

After a prolonged dormant period, she realised that her intuition became hidden behind the goal-orientated approach which she had learnt from the college and a commercial setting. She became interested in subconsciousness and spontaneity in the action of taking photos.

In 2017, she moved to Calgary, Canada. In 2018, her first book, “Fragments of Subconsciousness” was self-published.