Biography
Yuka Aoyagi (born 1999, Tokyo) is an emerging Japanese intaglio printmaker working in etching and aquatint, with a practice based in Tokyo. Her work has been selected for the College Women's Association of Japan (CWAJ) Print Show, one of Asia's longest-running annual print exhibitions, and she is a recipient of the CWAJ Young Printmaker Award.
Aoyagi trained at the Nihon University College of Art in Tokyo and continued into the Master's Program in Plastic Arts at the Nihon University Graduate School of Art. The College of Art is one of the oldest and largest comprehensive arts colleges in Japan, with a substantial printmaking program, and her progression from undergraduate to graduate study at the same institution reflects a sustained commitment to the medium.
Aoyagi's prints draw on classical Japanese literary sources. The etching-and-aquatint work 'I want to see you, even if it's a dream' (うつゝにも夢にも逢はまし) takes its title and imagery from the Tales of Ise (Ise Monogatari), the early-Heian collection of waka-centered narrative episodes, while her Young Printmaker Award print 'Yatsuhashi' draws on the 'eight bridges' motif of that work's Azuma-kudari ('Journey to the East') episode. Working primarily in copperplate, she has described a practice concerned with the ambiguity between fiction and reality, and her engagement with centuries-old poetic and narrative material places her within the long tradition of Japanese printmaking that responds to literary source material.
As an early-career artist born in 1999, Aoyagi's documented practice is still in its first decade, and detailed exhibition history and gallery representation are not yet widely surfaced through public English-language channels. Her CWAJ selection and Young Printmaker Award, together with her sustained use of classical literary source material, suggest a serious and continuing engagement with the medium.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1999
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Yuka Aoyagi (born 1999, Tokyo) is an emerging Japanese intaglio printmaker working in etching and aquatint, with a practice based in Tokyo. Her work has been selected for the College Women's Association of Japan (CWAJ) Print Show, one of Asia's longest-running annual print exhibitions, and she is a recipient of the CWAJ Young Printmaker Award.
Yuka Aoyagi was active born in 1999. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Yuka Aoyagi's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.