Biography
Yasuko Iba (伊庭靖子) is a Kyoto-based Japanese contemporary artist working primarily in oil painting, with a distinct body of work in watercolour, printmaking, and video, all unified by a sustained investigation of perception, light, and material texture. Born in Kyoto in 1967, she completed postgraduate coursework in printmaking at Kyoto Saga Art College in 1990, and has lived and worked in Kyoto throughout her career.
Iba's practice begins with photography of familiar motifs — cushions, ceramics, fabric, fruit, glassware — which she then translates into oil paintings (and into editioned print works through her continued use of printmaking technique). What is essential for Iba is not the reproduction of individual objects but the way space arises through their presence: objects serve as a point of departure, but the true subject is the light, air, and texture that fill the surrounding space — elements that are visible yet rarely consciously perceived. This phenomenological approach continues seamlessly across her practice in oil painting, watercolour, printmaking, and video, consistently treating texture and light as direct experiential phenomena.
Her career-defining residencies include the 1999 Daimler Chrysler Group Art Scope residency at Montflanquin, France, and the 2001-2002 International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York, supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs Overseas Training Program. Major solo exhibitions include 'Whereness of Brilliance' at the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura (2009), 'A Way of Seeing' at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (2019), and recurring solo exhibitions at MISA SHIN GALLERY in Tokyo (2012, 2017, and the 2026 'paintings — あらわれ (appearing) —' show). She received the 35th Kyoto Art and Culture Prize in 2022 and the 40th Kyoto Prefecture Cultural Award (Distinguished Service) in 2021.
For Hanga's purposes, Iba's connection to printmaking is foundational but secondary in her current output. Her postgraduate training was specifically in printmaking, and printmaking remains a regular component of the cross-medium practice that the MISA SHIN GALLERY catalogue articulates as a unified investigation of perceptual surface — but her circulating output through galleries and museum exhibitions is dominated by oil painting. She is included in the Hanga roster as a contemporary Japanese artist with a printmaking foundation rather than as a strictly print-only practitioner; the slug 'iba-yasuko' identifies her canonical Japanese name (Iba being the family name, Yasuko the given name).
The artist is represented by MISA SHIN GALLERY (Tokyo) and is included in the Art Platform Japan registry. Her work is held in the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura; the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; and additional collections in Japan. The 2025 KG+ exhibition at Kyotographie placed her work alongside that of Hiroyuki Kitano, Shunsuke Kano, Hana Sawada, and other Kyoto-affiliated artists in a multi-artist contemporary-art group show.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1967
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
Frequently Asked Questions
Yasuko Iba (伊庭靖子) is a Kyoto-based Japanese contemporary artist working primarily in oil painting, with a distinct body of work in watercolour, printmaking, and video, all unified by a sustained investigation of perception, light, and material texture. Born in Kyoto in 1967, she completed postgraduate coursework in printmaking at Kyoto Saga Art College in 1990, and has lived and worked in Kyoto throughout her career.
Yasuko Iba was active born in 1967. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Yasuko Iba'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.