Shizuka Kusayanagi

Los Angeles, California

Artist Statement

In my most recent oil paintings, I try to encapsulate visions I have experienced during meditations or states of mind-body connection. Like a portrait photographer using the lens of a mind’s eye, I capture the visions to later develop their spirit physically, onto canvas or paper. The process is like that of a language interpreter, as I attempt to create the universal language of "feelings" onto a visual platform from my own subjective experiences.

Artist Biography

Shizuka Kusayanagi was born in 1982 in Yokohama, Japan, and obtained a BFA in Communication Design from Parsons School of Design, New York. She is currently based in Los Angeles.

Shizuka has 12 years of experience as a designer, illustrator, and art director, having enriched her life with disciplines spanning from printmaking, photography, drawing, sculpting, writing, cooking, producing art workshops, and raising two healthy humans.

Having divided her time between growing up in Japan and the United States, with frequent trips to France, Shizuka considers herself a mutt of the three cultures. She believes she has developed a particular sensitivity as an “insider-outsider”, a curious nomad often trying to identify what constitutes a city, a culture, or a person. Whether it be loosely abstract oil paintings of Los Angeles landscapes, text and image-based works on index cards, or pastel drawings of organic shapes, a place, a memory, or a feeling all become portraits for Shizuka: portraits in terms of the essence of the subject matter, carefully studied and interpreted both as a participant and a spectator.

shizuka-kusayanagi.com

@illustrated_by_shizuk

Shizuka Kusayanagi

Artist Statement