In Kashihara’s works, layers of dense yet translucent colors such as blue, pink, green, and brown are applied in bold touches to vividly convey the fundamental energies of the earth. What come to manifest are faraway worlds beyond time and space, where the imaginary and reality coalesce.

Kashihara interweaves the impressions gained from her visits to virgin forests in Japan and abroad, her experiences in Germany where she had lived for a long time, and inspiration from various landscapes with her own memories, thereby depicting imagined landscapes of forests, lakes, mountains, caves, and geological formations that seem to belong to no specific place nor time. Among them, lakes in particular are an important motif for the artist. Taking inspiration from a phrase in Noriko Ibaragi’s poem, “Every human being should have place for a calm and silent lake within the depths of their heart,” the artist expresses her desire to harbor a lake within herself, and continue envisioning her ideal lake.

Yuka Kashihara was born in 1980 in Hiroshima Prefecture. In 2006 she graduated from the Japanese Painting Department of Musashino Art University. In the same year she moved to Germany, and in 2013 she acquired a Diploma from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. In 2015, she was named a Meisterschüler (Masters graduate) of the same academy, studying under Professor Annette Schröter. In 2008 she exhibited at the Bauhuas Dessau Foundation in Shakkei (“borrowed scenery”), a solo show curated by research scholar Torsten Blume of the same Foundation, and in 2012 she exhibited in VOCA, Tokyo, where she received both the Honourable Mention Award and the Ohara Museum of Art Award.

1980　Born in Hiroshima, Japan
2006　B.F.A in Japanese Painting, Musashino Art University, Tokyo
2012　Stayed in Germany under POLA Art Foundation Grants Program
2013　Completed Diploma in Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, Germany
    A part-time lecturer of Musashino Art University, Department of Japanese Painting, Tokyo (-2017)
2015　Completed Meisterschüler in Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, Germany (under Prof. Annette Schroeter)
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She has moved her base from Germany to Japan in 2022.

http://yukakashihara.com