Yukiko Suto was born in 1978 in Kanagawa Prefecture. She graduated with a B.A in Graphic Design from the Department of Design at Tama Art University in 2001, and currently lives and works in Kanagawa.

Her major exhibitions include “The Japan Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition (Curated by Momoyo Kaijima), La Biennale di Venezia” (2018), “Late Autumn Weeds Exhibition” (107 S-CHANF, Switzerland, 2019), and “The Sense of Wonder: into another garden” (Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuka, Japan, 2020). Suto’s works are housed in public collections such as The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Yokohama Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, as well as in numerous private collections across the globe.

From old houses and gardens to weeds growing in parking lots, an elementary school swimming pool and so forth, Suto has meticulously painted beautiful scenes of everyday life that she encountered while walking down the street and found herself emotionally inspired by. Her works quietly convey the excitement she had experienced at the time, as well as the way in which she felt even her own heart to have become beautifully rejuvenated.

Her medium of choice is pencil, which she feels most comfortable with. The pencil is a medium that fulfils her various artistic desires from its slightly bluish color to its texture, the effects achieved through rubbing, the faint traces that remain after erasing, and the possibility to draw things in elaborate detail. Suto draws connections between the color of the pencil and her experience of being raised in a residential area lined with grey concrete buildings, while the line drawings themselves are influenced by the comics and anime that she has been familiar with since childhood.

Each motif is carefully captured individually, and the combination of flat landscapes without shadows gives rise to a uniquely oscillating sense of perspective and exquisite reality. The sections here and there that are painted in watercolors are parts that left an impression on Suto, and this coexistence of monochrome and color serves to further incite the viewer’s imagination.

1978　Born in Kanagawa, Japan
2001　B.A., Graphic Design Course, Department of Design Faculty, Tama Art University
Lives and works in Kanagawa, Japan

https://www.yukikosuto.com