Aya Abe was born in Tokyo, Japan. When she was a baby, she swayed her hips to the rhythm of music even before she started walking. Because she was such a performance-loving baby, her mother brought her to a dance studio at her age of 4. She has been enjoying dancing since then. In her childhood she also loved to draw comics and her dream was becoming a cartoonist. When she was in her teens, she had a chance to live in Ithaca, N.Y., for a year with her family, and attended Ithaca High School. Whoever once lived in a foreign country starts thinking about her own culture, and so was she.
She received Master of Education in Fine Arts in Japanese-Style Paintings at Tokyo Gakugei University in 1980. She has been holding many exhibitions including solo as well as group shows of her art works since 1990.
In the last 10 years, she has focused on flowers in search for their beauties in designed pattern that characterizes traditional Japanese Art. She also attempts at extemporaneous drawing, combining it with designed pattern, which results in what she believes a contemporary Japanese-style painting with supreme elegance.