Português
1988, lives and works at Los Angeles, California, United States
Born in Tokyo, Japan, Asuka Anastacia Ogawa spent part of her childhood and adolescence in Petrópolis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro — her maternal family’s hometown. In the years that followed, she lived in Sweden, London, and Los Angeles, where she currently resides. The cultural diversity of her formative years has had a direct impact on her artistic practice, which draws inspiration from the customs and religions of the various countries she has lived in.
The artist states that childhood memories — even those seemingly lost — eventually return to influence her creative process, resulting in a harmonic fusion of ancestry and contemporaneity. Her compositions feature androgynous figures with rounded faces and almond-shaped eyes that seem to gaze beyond the edges of the canvas. In her work, Asuka references, above all, her Japanese and Afro-Brazilian heritage.
Among her most recent solo exhibitions are Melinha (Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil) and Paris Plus, in the French capital, in 2024. Other shows include Pedra (Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, USA, 2023), Tamago (Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, USA, 2022), Feijão (Half Gallery, New York, USA, 2019), and Soup (Henry Taylor’s, Los Angeles, USA, 2017).
