YUKI MATSUEDA 

It’s one thing to conform to boring, one-dimensional street signs, but one gets a whole different feeling when obeying the incredible 3D art sings by Japanese artist Yuki Matsueda. These artworks are definitely attractive and easy to pay attention to. The series is fun, creative and unique—the pieces certainly break the mold.
Matsueda’s work consists of signs, ordinary elements and abstract images trying to escape the plastic frame they’re put into. The artist creates a 3D piece by giving the impression that the subject of the image has come to life and is trying to escape its constraints. My favorite has to be the exit man trying to actually exit—it’s extremely ironic and eye-catching.

Mikuo KONOKI 

Famous Japanese painter, sculptor, glass painter, and muralist, has 2 private art museums in Japan and has successively produced large-scale murals all over Japan. He was once the representative of Japanese PUBLIC ART. He has won many awards such as the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology Award, etc.

Mikuo KONOKI ‘s creative medium is constantly changing, and clay, glass, scrap iron (Ganta), etc. are brought back to life in his hands. After the earthquake on March 11, the artist devoted himself to creating a series of works with poetry, painting, and sculpture as the main body, which were serialized in Art Monthly for half a year. The artist takes “the dignity of life” as the theme, only wishing that the subject with life will be respected, nurtured, and shine. His works are full of vitality, with a “clumsy” air, like a kind of wisdom, reminding everyone who is anxious about life. Laughter and sadness, anger, despair and hope, charity and awe, are expressed like a poem, passionately telling the “hymn of life”.

Emi UCHIDA 

Emi Uchida’s abstract works are infinitely extending as a whole. But on closer inspection, they revealed a dense interplay of charcoal paintinged lines suggestive of a network.The impression conveyed by the painted surfaces was of space exploding into infinity. Here were the neural networks of the human body connecting with the unbounded expanses of the universe and transporting with them the viewer. The familiar segued spectacularly into the ineffable.

At the same time, Emi Uchida is also engaged in printmaking. She draws nourishment from the “Shunga” of the Edo period, using lines and collages to deal with taboos and explicitness, concealment and revealing, and endow tradition with new interpretation and vitality.

Chiyu UEMAE

Chiyu Uemae was born in Kyoto prefecture, Japan in 1920. Chiyu Uemae’s career began with his involvement in the Gutai Group, which was founded by his hard-won mentor Jiro Yoshihara (the founder of the avant-garde Gutai group). In 1953, Uemae meets Yoshihara, since then, the artist takes part in every Gutai exhibition until its dissolution. Uemae, unlike many of his Gutai peers, is not known for using action as the basis of his mixed-media works.

Prior to joining the Gutai, Uemae had studied Nanga and western movements, but believes his most formative experience was an apprenticeship in Kyozome or the Kyoto style of dyeing. Because of this training, as well as a childhood immersed in non-figurative design, the practice of sewing became paramount to Uemae’s mature style. His mixed-media paintings sometimes feature textile elements, but are characteristically identified by his careful compositions comprised of fine dots or patterns. Chiyu Uemae’s wide-ranging creations from two-dimensional works which are composed of pattern accumulation by painting knives or of sensitive stitches to sculptural works made of cloth or wood or sawdust. He remains active in his 80s and 90s, still producing etchings and silkscreens.