In 1923, she enrolled to study the traditional Japanese painting style Nihonga at the Women's Special School of Art in Tokyo.

She decided to further her studies and acquired a teaching post at Ooka state primary school in Yokohama for the next thirty years, and at the Women's University of Fine Art for another fifteen.

Art critic Sarah Custen describes Kataoka's unique response to the influence of popular American artists: "Kataoka’s landscapes evoke Georgia O'Keeffe, and her ‘Countenance’ series is undeniably reminiscent of Warhol's pop art, yet her work is far from imitative.

While much of Japanese art is dedicated to faithful replication, Kataoka's paintings sing as true, individual expression.

[4] She designed one of the curtains at the Nagoya Kabuki Misono-za theatre called "Flowers at Mount Fuji" (富士に献花).