Kodo Nishimura

Honestly, the first time I came across Kodo Nishimura I had to stop and re-read his bio twice — a Buddhist monk who is also a makeup artist and LGBTQ+ activist, all at once, no compromise. He trained at Parsons in New York, which already tells you he was never going to stay in one lane. What gets me is the genuine tension he holds together: the stillness and ritual of the priesthood alongside the boldness of full glam, using both as tools to say that compassion and self-expression aren't opposites. It's easy to write someone like that off as a gimmick, but watching him speak or seeing his work, you realize the through-line is completely sincere. He's essentially asking whether the institutions we inherited — religion, beauty, identity — have to stay in their separate boxes, and he's betting his whole career that the answer is no. I find that quietly radical.

Kodo Nishimura (born February 13, 1989, in Tokyo) is a Japanese Buddhist monk, makeup artist, and activist. He studied at Parsons School of Design in New York. He is known for combining his religious vocation with makeup artistry and advocacy work centered on self-expression and identity.

Name (English)

Kodo Nishimura

Name (Japanese)

西村宏堂

Reading

にしむら こうどう

Born

February 13, 1989 (age 37)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Snake (巳)

Origin

Tokyo, Japan

Occupation

Buddhist monk / makeup artist / activist

University

Parsons School of Design

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://www.kodonishimura.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/kodomakeup/
• Xhttps://x.com/kodonishimura
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A5%BF%E6%9D%91%E5%AE%8F%E5%A0%82

Tags

• From Tokyo
• Buddhist monk
• makeup artist
• activist

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.