Natsuka Kuze

Drawing the present with the theme of nature and people

Natsuka Kuze uses traditional Japanese painting materials to depict everyday life in modern society.
The first thing that catches the eye is the depiction of insects such as butterflies, which is rooted in a precise eye for observation.
A small life that has existed close to people for a long time, but has been kept away from urban life and is disappearing due to development.
By realistically drawing multiple individuals with different species and movements, it invites you to feel as if you are flapping your wings in front of your eyes.
The unique dynamic world of her works, which are still images, is completed by the imagination of the viewer.

Also, many of Kuze’s portraits are of contemporary girls and women.
She is not a real person, but an image that combines faces and body parts of various ages and races.
She also wants to pay attention to clothing that incorporates a modern sensibility that appears in fashion magazines.
In contrast to the universal Japanese women that have been depicted in many Japanese paintings, women living in the present.
Kuze’s sense of color, which works in various media such as acrylic abstract paintings and digital illustrations, In particular, it can be said that it is reflected in the image of women who are easy to reflect the times.

At first glance, the motifs of disappearing natural creatures and women living in the present in human society do not overlap.
Pursuit of modern sensibility by traditional techniques. These unbalanced elements coexist in a single picture while maintaining an exquisite balance.
A work world where incompatible things coexist. It is also an attempt to keep nature, which is sinking in the shadow of our prosperity, alive forever in paintings.

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Biography

2004 Graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts

[Solo exhibition]
2014 Picture book "Misarashi no Akari - Gokayama Washi -" Original Art Exhibition (NHK Toyama Broadcasting Station)

[Group exhibition]
2017 Shell Art Award 2017 Exhibition (National Art Center, Tokyo)
2019 FACE2019 Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Art Award Exhibition (Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art/Tokyo) 2021 ACT Art Grand Prize Exhibition (Art Complex Center/Tokyo)
2021 DANCE, DANCE, DANCE and DANCE Exhibition (Gildahl Gallery/Aichi)
2022 Utakata II -Foam- Exhibition (GALLERY ART POINT/Tokyo)
2023/Tamakyo I -Fleeting Moment- Exhibition (GALLERY ART POINT/Tokyo)

[Award/Selected History]
2001 Maebashi Art Competition Live 2001 Bronze Award
2009 5th Nanto City Art Exhibition Encouragement Award
2010 Selected for Art Now KANAZAWA 49th Hokuriku Chunichi Art Exhibition 2017 Shell Art Award 2017 Selected
2018 Selected for FACE 2019 Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Art Award