Yuka Aoyagi

Yuka Aoyagi (born 1999, Tokyo) is an emerging Japanese intaglio printmaker working in etching and aquatint, with a sustained practice based in Tokyo. Her selection in the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 with 'I want to see you, even if it's a dream' (うつゝにも夢にも逢はまし), a substantial 71 × 100 cm etching/aquatint, places her among the youngest cohort of selected artists in the catalog and demonstrates an unusually large-format technical command for an early-career artist.

Aoyagi received her training at Nihon University Faculty of Art (Nihon University College of Art, located in Asagaya, Tokyo) and continued through Nihon University Graduate School of Art. Nihon University's College of Art is one of the oldest and largest comprehensive arts colleges in Japan, founded in 1921, with a substantial printmaking program that has produced a recognizable line of contemporary Japanese print artists. Aoyagi's progression from undergraduate to graduate work at the same institution suggests a strong commitment to the printmaking program's pedagogical approach.

The title — 'I want to see you, even if it's a dream' (うつゝにも夢にも逢はまし, utsutsu ni mo yume ni mo awamashi) — is drawn from classical Japanese waka poetry, specifically a poem from the Kokin Wakashu (Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern, 905 CE), one of the foundational classical Japanese poetry anthologies. The phrase translates approximately as 'I would meet you whether in waking life or in dream,' an expression of profound longing across the boundary of consciousness. The use of a 1,100-year-old classical poetic line as the title for a contemporary intaglio etching positions Aoyagi's work within the long tradition of Japanese print engaging with literary and poetic source material — a register that runs from the Edo-period haiku-paired landscape prints through the modern print tradition of Munakata Shiko's poetic-philosophical inscriptions to contemporary practice.

The substantial 71 × 100 cm sheet size of 'I want to see you, even if it's a dream' is at the upper end of intaglio practice for an early-career artist. The etching/aquatint technique combination produces both the structural drawn line of etching and the soft tonal modeling of aquatint, characteristic of figurative-narrative Japanese intaglio. The CWAJ catalog assigned the work Print No. 004 in the 68th edition.

Further biographical detail beyond the CWAJ Print Show entry — Aoyagi's broader exhibition history, gallery representation, undergraduate thesis work, and continuing series direction — is not currently surfaced through the public-facing English-language channels. The Nihon University College of Art alumni records and Tokyo-area emerging-artist exhibition databases would be the principal next-step research targets for extending this bio. As an early-career artist born in 1999, Aoyagi's documented practice is still in its first decade; her substantial CWAJ-selected print and her use of classical literary source material suggest a serious and sustained engagement with the medium that is likely to continue across coming editions.