Kaoru is a Japanese-Australian studio-based designer and maker residing in the inner west of Sydney. Her process is akin to puzzle making or assemblage, shuffling tangential shapes, materials, colours, and textures into the right composition and finding the balance of movement: how forms can sway, flutter, dangle, or perch. After a career in advertising, she completed her Advanced Diploma of Jewellery and Object Design at Design Centre Enmore, Sydney, graduating with distinction.

Born in Japan and having lived and worked across many different parts of the world, her work is influenced by the beauty and essence of where she lives, incorporating the new materials she finds and techniques she explores with makers of each unique region.