Saki Sumida (born in Okayama, Japan, in 1985)

Sumida is known for her landscape paintings that combine traditional Japanese motifs, such as Mt. Fuji. and the Seven Gods of Fortune, with other disparate elements. Although such juxtapositions are a common sight in Japanese everyday life, Sumida’s landscapes composed as souvenir pictures, tourism advertisement or scenes from mythological stories. They strike the viewer as a somewhat cynical assemblage of heterogeneous materials. Sumida takes her materials, the images of phenomena that have come to be regarded as “originally Japanese” despite arising from cross-cultural exchange since antiquity. She reproduces them using the traditionally Western pictorial technique of oils on canvas in a way that the contrast between multiple cultures is consciously accentuated. This is for her, and for us viewers, a method to get to know the very place we live.

炭田はこれまで、富士山や七福神などいわゆる伝統的で日本らしいモチーフとそうでないものを組み合わせた風景を描いてきています。それら両者が存在する風景は現在の日本では日常の一部であるにも関わらず、記念写真や観光地の宣材、神話的物語の一場面などさまざまなイメージとして絵画上に再構築された風景は依然として異質な組み合わせでありどこかシニカルでもあります。古来より異文化との交流の中にありながら、いつしか「日本のオリジナル」として定着したイメージを、あえて対比的に複数の文化が混ざり合った様子として、キャンバスに油彩という西欧の伝統的絵画上で再現する試みは、自分たちの生きている場所を知る方法でもあるのです。


七福神 Seven Gods of Fortune, 2014, 91.0 x 116.7 cm, oil on canvas


Fuji, 2014, 130.3 x 194.0 cm, oil on canvas

1985
Born in Okayama, Japan

2008
Onomichi City University, B.A. (oil painting)

2010
Onomichi City University, M.A. (oil painting)

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018
Everlasting Bloom, Yuka Tsuruno Gallery, Tokyo

2016
Unaffected by Wave, Fukiage Art Museum, Okayama
As It Goes, YUKA TSURUNO Gallery, Tokyo

2015
Fuji, Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, Tokyo
Watashi no Kuni de nai Watashi no Kuni, Mishima Taisha Homotsukan Gallery, Shizuoka

2014
Seven Gods Of Fortune, Takashi Somemiya Gallery, Tokyo

2012
Arch Wizerd, BAMI gallery, Kyoto

2010
Neon, Takamatsu Tenmaya, Kagawa

2009
Saki Sumida Exhibition, GALLERY b. TOKYO, Tokyo

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2017
Art Now Okayama, Hyoso, Tenjinyama Cultural Plaza of Okayama prefecture; NIIMI MUSUEM OF ART; SHOO MUSEUM OF THE ARTS, Okayama
MINA-TO SUMMER FESTIVAL "FUTURE STAR", MINA-TO, Tokyo
Somewhere I Have Never Travelled ~ seeking the future together, URANO, Tokyo

2016
Mr."I" selected Prize Exhibition, Okayama

2015
Art Award Next Ⅲ, Tokyo Art Club, Tokyo

2014
How to Spend My Daily Life, Shionoe Museum of Art, Kawaga
VOCA 2014, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo

2013
Today’s Piece, Art Museum of Onomichi City University, Hiroshima
Tokyo Wonder Wall 2013, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

2012
Art Award Next 2012, Tokyo Art Club, Tokyo

2010
Art Award Next #1, Tokyo Art Club, Tokyo

2009
Wonder Seed 2009, Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, Tokyo

AWARDS

2016
Mr."I" Prize (First Prize), Okayama Prefecture

2013
Tokyo Wonder Wall Prize, Tokyo Wonder Site

2012
Art Award Next 2012, Tokyo Art Club

2010
Art Award Next #1, Tokyo Art Club

2009
Wonder Seed 2009, Tokyo Wonder Site

GRANTS AND RESIDENCES

2016
Fukiage Art Museum, Okayama

2013
Oficina de Arte, Mexico City

ARTIST WEBSITE
http://saki-sumida.jimdo.com/


NEWS　日本語