Influenced by her father, a neuroscientist, Kawato became strongly aware from an early age that humans perceive the world through the brain, and was particularly interested in optical illusions. During her undergraduate years in Kyoto, she studied traditional Japanese dyeing and weaving, but after searching for a new form of expression, she discovered painting, and from her doctoral studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts, she began presenting grid-shaped paintings with the theme of "control and deviation."
