Kusaba was born in Saga Prefecture in 1960.
From an early age, he grew up with a strong interest in “life” such as animals and nature.
Kusaba, who found great joy in creation and expression, entered the College of Art at Nihon University to take the Theatre Course only to realize that what was truly necessary for him was not the artistic technique but experiences that could give him profundity and wisdom to vivify his arts.
He left the college and became a backpacker to spend almost 4 years traveling mainly around Asia. The trip allowed him to look at ordinary things from a different perspective rather than an occasion to learn something new. The simple fact that we all are living repeatedly struck him and finally made him decide to be an artist to express “sparkles of life.”

He went back to his homeland with the vision of a new art form of ceramic painting by utilizing Arita-yaki’s conventional techniques.
However Kusaba knocked on many doors sharing his idea of “TOSAIGA”, it was rejected as a foolhardy undertaking.
Finally, Yuki Hayama, a ceramicist famous for his precise and delicate painting, welcomed the concept as innovative and worth trying, and let him begin the study of ceramic painting in 1987. Kusaba was 27 years old.

Whereas in traditional regular ceramic ware, the glaze painting and firing process is repeated 4 times at the most, Kusaba stuck to realize much more vivid and deeper colors, and kept trial and error until he finally succeeded in repeating the process more than 10 times.

In 1990, he became independent and opened “Atelier Imagine” in Yamauchi-cho, Takeo City to start creating TOSAIGA in earnest.

He kept up study and research being particular about color and sparkles, while constantly visiting various places such as India, Mongolia, and Dunhuang, in search of techniques, motifs, and inspiration for his art. As his career as an artist steadily advanced and he began holding solo exhibitions in various locations, his atelier opened a directly managed gallery in Saga in 2004.

Also, Kusaba wrote the picture book “Festival of Life: Where do I come from?”, with a feeling of the need to talk how precious life is. It was motivated by several cases of young children involved in tragic incidences and child abuse. The book was later assigned in Japanese elementary schools as a supplementary reader in morality classes, and he came to be quite regularly invited as a guest speaker at lecture meetings.

In 2014, Kusaba renovated the Saga Gallery to mark the 25th anniversary of the atelier opening and renamed it Kusaba Kazuhisa Koubou.
In 2020, Kusaba turned 60 years old, which is, in Japan, regarded as the turning point to finish a period and to be reborn. At this juncture, Kusaba got back to his basics, longing for the sparkle of life, and started to create a new series “Jizai (at will)”. For the series, he freely paints without a sketch, following his inspiration. Also, Kusaba thought of “Ryū no Tama ‘Nyoihōju’” (Cintamani, wish-fulfilling jewel) to express the energy of dragons.

Even now, more than 30 years after originating TOSAIGA, he continues to evolve as an artist, driven by his unfailing passion for the expression of life.