Fuco Ueda

In Fuco Ueda’s manga-inspired paintings, female characters inhabit an incandescent world between land and sea, dreams and reality. Ueda uses a mixture of acrylic and Gofun powder thinned to a watercolor-like consistency on canvas, paper, and wood. This technique allows her to create a glowing, almost fluorescent color scheme with shades like tangerine, lavender, and turquoise offset by inky dark hues. Ueda’s figures are surrounded by elements evoking fantasy—sea creatures, deer, and mystical dragons—and symbols of death and loss, such as chrysanthemums and fireballs. Ueda graduated from Tokyo Polytechnic University’s Graduate School of Arts in 2003. Her previous group shows include the 2016 Fukushima Biennial and “Goldfish Bisho Exhibition” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2017).