Yoichiro Kawaguchi was born in 1952 in Tanegashima, Kagoshima. While studying at the Department of Visual Design Kyushu Institute of Design (now Kyushu University), he began experimenting with CTR graphic displays and completed his first CG work, "Pollen" in 1975. The year after, he began a full-scale study of growth models and created his first work, "Shell" in which the "self-propagating growth models" has remained a constant theme. Through the CG images, we can experience the "growth" of the work itself as it multiplies its cells from a formative algorithm of a complex life form.

Kawaguchi's work evokes the sensation of "entering the body of an alien life form", and in 1982 he presented his formative paper "GROWTH Model" at SIGGRAPH '82 (USA), the world's foremost international conference on computer graphics. In 1986, he was invited to the 42nd Venice Biennale, and in 1995 he represented Japan at the 46th Venice Biennale. Since 2000, he has been a professor at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Environment and Information Studies, and in 2013, he was awarded the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize.