Profile
永田優美/Yumi Nagata
Born in Tokyo in 1997
2021 Graduated from Tamabi University, Department of Painting, Japanese Painting Major
Exhibition History
【Solo Exhibition】
2021
“positive” biscuit gallery, Tokyo
【Group Exhibitions】
2024
“Rebuilding” UNPEL GALLERY, Tokyo
“grid3” biscuit gallery, Tokyo/Karuizawa
2022
– Kai Ishii × Azusa Nozawa × Yumi Nagata “What is Kawaii?” Ginza Tsutaya Bookstore, Tokyo
– “CROSSROADS” WHAT CAFE, Tokyo
– biscuit gallery first anniversary exhibition “grid” biscuit gallery, Tokyo
Awards
2019
5th Tadashi Ishimoto Japanese Painting Grand Prize Exhibition Selection
2018
National Art Center “Asian Creative Art Exhibition 2018” Newcomer Award
Tamabi University “Five Art Universities Exchange Exhibition 2018” Nakazato Corporation Award
Overviews
Nagata’s works appear at first glance to follow the tradition of Japanese painting expression in Japanese art that depicts girls in an aesthetic or caricatural manner. However, underlying this is what the artist herself describes as: “Animation, manga, and the girls I have depicted in my Japanese paintings so far seemed to become a motif that tends to be avoided once entering the world of contemporary art.” She consistently engages with how girls are treated as motifs in the painting scene and how they are received. There is also an attitude of directly confronting the question of how to connect one’s own cultural background and art historical context with “the self that wants to paint girls and the self that denies it.”