Biography
Yumiko Morisue (born 1982, Kyoto) is a Japanese printmaker whose intricate handcrafted works elevate ordinary objects — small everyday utensils, found scraps of paper, common household items — into objects of meticulous attention through small-format printmaking. She completed her MFA in Printmaking at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2009 and has been based in Kyoto throughout her career. Her work was featured at the 3rd PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale in 2022.
Morisue's mature practice is shaped by an attention to the small — both in physical scale and in everyday-object subject matter. Her recommender at PATinKyoto, Hosokawa Yoshiyoko of Gallery Hosokawa (the Osaka gallery that has long shown her work), describes the pieces as refined and meticulously crafted, carrying warmth and subtle humour alongside their careful execution. The combination of technical rigour and gentle humour characterises a recognisable Kyoto-school printmaking sensibility that runs through several of the city's print-graduate generations.
Her solo exhibitions include 'Quietly on a Day' at INAX Gallery 2 in Tokyo (2010), 'The fish which lives only in flow of waterfall' at Gallery Hosokawa, Osaka (2011), 'Stepping outside Reality' at Gallery Hosokawa (2017), and 'Juichi' at Gallery Hosokawa (2019). This sustained relationship with Gallery Hosokawa — a series of solo exhibitions over more than a decade — establishes her as one of the gallery's principal long-term artists. INAX Gallery 2 in Tokyo was among the more institutionally engaged corporate-foundation galleries in the Tokyo print scene, and the 2010 'Quietly on a Day' selection extended her early-career visibility.
Group exhibitions of note include 'Art Court Frontier 2010 #8' at Art Court Gallery, Osaka (2010), 'Displacement' at @kcua, Kyoto (2011 — the gallery affiliated with Kyoto City University of Arts), 'NOW JAPAN' at Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands (2013 — extending her work to a European institutional context), 'Gakuenmae Art Week 2015' (Nara), 'Drama in Everyday Life' at A-Lab, Hyogo (2016), and the 3rd PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale (2022).
Morisue's work is documented through her artist website (morisueyumiko.com), through Gallery Hosokawa, and through the PATinKyoto archive. Her positioning within the contemporary Japanese print scene is as a sustained mid-career Kyoto print specialist whose intricate small-format practice has accumulated a recognisable, gently humorous body of work attentive to the detailed surfaces of everyday objects.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1982
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 6
Frequently Asked Questions
Yumiko Morisue (born 1982, Kyoto) is a Japanese printmaker whose intricate handcrafted works elevate ordinary objects — small everyday utensils, found scraps of paper, common household items — into objects of meticulous attention through small-format printmaking. She completed her MFA in Printmaking at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2009 and has been based in Kyoto throughout her career. Her work was featured at the 3rd PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale in 2022.
Yumiko Morisue was active born in 1982. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Yumiko Morisue'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.
