His mature style often featured brightly colored, off-kilter geometric shapes done in large format, including round canvasses; subtly elaborate brushwork suggested the influence of both traditional Asian art and the "mystics" of the Northwest School.

His later work at times used symbolic shapes which more directly evoked his Nisei heritage and the years he spent in detention camps with his family during World War II.

[1] His parents, immigrants from the Hiroshima area in Japan, managed residence hotels in the International District near downtown Seattle.

Charlie Okada was in the all-Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team, along with an older foster brother who was killed in action in Italy.

[2] Okada was drafted in the United States Army for just under two years, including several months at an evacuation hospital in South Korea during the Korean War near the Pusan area.

Evenings were often spent at the Cedar Tavern, interacting with the members of the city's burgeoning modern art scene.

However, he found it difficult to develop his style amid the excitement of New York, and was disappointed by how quickly commercial interests and new hierarchies took root as the city became the world's new focus of modern art.

[4] He shared a studio space with friend and fellow painter William Ivey in the rough-hewn Pioneer Square section of downtown Seattle.