Yuri Shimojo
Overview
Photo by saikocamera, courtesy of the artist
Yuri Shimojo is a Tokyo-born, contemporary Japanese painter who lives and works between New York and Kyoto. The last descendent of her samurai clan who lost all of her immediate family members before the age of 30, Shimojo has always used painting to express the interconnected emotions of joy and pain. Using traditional Japanese watercolor or ground SUMI and SHU ink, her work combines the abstract and the surreal, often playfully and always evocative of the desire for universal compassion.
With minimal formal training in fine art, her style is grounded in the practice of classical Japanese dance. Her publications include a memoir of her unique childhood with her late family. She also spent many years studying Hawaiian healing practices and spirituality. These experiences moving between cultures have influenced her work throughout her life and continue to bring new sources of inspiration. She has exhibited in the U.S. and Japan and is in private collections around the world.
Select Works
Video
Exhibitions
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Mirrors
Solo exhibition by Yuri Shimojo 16 Nov - 21 Dec 2024Praise Shadows is deeply honored to share the newest body of work by Yuri Shimojo in the upcoming exhibition, Mirrors, her second solo at the gallery. This collection of ink paintings were made in the aftermath of her cancer treatment and diagnosis, the passing of her beloved dog and companion Rudy, and a long-delayed visit to Japan to parse through the archives of her deceased family and her samurai ancestors.Read more -
Shaping Fragments
Group Exhibition 11 Jul - 10 Aug 2024Prints and multiples by Chloe Alexander, Polly Apfelbaum, Jeffrey Gibson, Yaron Michael Hakim, Crystalle Lacouture, Louise Nevelson, Yuri Shimojo, Frank Stella, Yu-Wen Wu.Read more
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Memento Mori
Solo Exhibition by Yuri Shimojo 11 Mar - 18 Apr 2021Not long after March 11, 2011, the day of the earthquake and tsunami, Shimojo was in New York City, far from her ancestral homeland. She heard reports on the news...Read more
Videos
Select Press
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At Praise Shadows, Yuri Shimojo paintings give shape to lives lived and lost
Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, March 31, 2021 -
Escape The House With These 15 Spring Art Exhibitions
Pamela Reynolds, WBUR, March 29, 2021 -
Yuri Shimojo Remembers the Natural Disaster of Tohoku
Coralie Kraft, The New York Times Style Magazine, March 11, 2021 -
Yng-Ru Chen ‘01 on Why She Opened Praise Shadows Art Gallery
Nina Wilder, Duke University, March 8, 2021
