ROOM 21 NAOKO USHIJIMA
point of view
flowers
Person being
scenery
Naoko Ushijima was born in Gunma Prefecture in 1979. She graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at Joshibi University of Art and Design with a concentration in Japanese Painting in 2006, and obtained her MA in Japanese Painting at the university’s Graduate School of Art and Design in 2008.
In 2012, she received the Higashiyama Kaii Nikkei Japanese Painting Award and the Shell Art Award 2012.
Her recent major exhibitions include The Flower with the Color of Wind: Dialogues for the Future (Arts Maebashi Gunma, 2015), VOCA Exhibition 2016: The Vision of Contemporary Art (Ueno Royal Museum Tokyo, 2016),and How to Look at Art (Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, 2020).
Her works, characterized by delicate, gentle expression within a matte, homogeneous context, are created using a unique method. After priming the panel with calcium carbonate and smoothing it with sandpaper, she paints the image using pigments and acrylic paints, and then adds the finishing touches with an airbrush.