Emi Kuraya

Profile

Born in 1995.

Since making her debut as a professional artist with Kaikai Kiki Gallery in 2018, Kuraya has made impressive feats through holding solo exhibitions in global locations such as Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Paris, and her works continue to travel to the homes of collectors all around the world.

Kuraya’s main medium is oil paint and watercolors, which she uses to depict her iconic composition of a young girl standing in the foreground of suburban Japan. The figures are drawn in a quintessential anime-style, which is an extension of the artist’s fascination with anime from a young age. These girls are a manifestation of the artist’s inner self, the canvas acting as a mirror every time she faces her work.

The background often depicts a detailed scenery of the Japanese suburbia, whether that be a paddy field, a karaoke box, a train station, or an empty park. However, all are imagined landscapes that is a projection of the emotional fluctuations that Kuraya experienced in her everyday life and the worldview of stories she has constructed inside of her. Though the sceneries in the artist’s artworks are fictional, the mundanity and familiarness of her landscapes create the illusion of nostalgia, making us feel as if we too have once seen and experienced these imaginary landscapes projected from the mind of the artist.