Murayama joined the Kuroda workshop in 1966 shortly after completing a degree in wood sculpture at Kyoto City University of Arts. A member of the Japan Crafts Association since 1971, he works in Uji in the southern outskirts of Kyoto. In his preference for strong and dignified forms and in his concern to unveil and give voice to the innermost qualities of his materials he owes much to his teacher's example. At the same time, however, he exerts sensitivities that are very much his own in his insistence on the importance of wood - both a manifestation of and a metaphor for nature and the organic - in the increasingly mechanized environment of late twentieth century Japan. Murayama was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Property (Living National Treasure) in 2003.