In 2021 Masao got invited by his friend and artist Yoshitomo Nara to participate in the exhibition “tomodachi to" (“With friends”) at Kunsthalle Dusseldorf. An exhibition celebrating artists of Japanese descent who studied at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie. A moment marking a new beginning of a career that started in the early 80's when he arrived in Dusseldorf. Although Masao's work had great potential in the late 80's, he deliberately decided to pause his career and work as a translator in order to support his family and take care of his children when they were younger. Only recently in 2016 Masao started painting and sculpting again. His work depict (self) portraits within the realm of personal memory.