YURIKA SAITO

From Tokyo Japan, residing in Berlin Germany since 2019.

Yurika Saito creates artworks with an awareness of the cycles of nature, the moment and eternity, and the connections between them. Through her experiences with nature and culture in various places, she strives to create artwork that viewers can feel through their own experience.

After studying the basics at Tokyo Shinjuku Art Institute, she left Tokyo at the age of 19 to experience the culture and nature of various countries and cities in Japan, Canada, Australia, and Europe.

When she returned to her hometown in Tokyo at the age of 28, she went through nursing her grandfather with her relatives and family and faced death. She began to be aware of the experiences she had had in various places, landscapes, temperatures, plants growing and their cycles on the earth in such a current situation, and she moved to Berlin in 2019 to put them into her works.

Since she moved to Berlin, she has tried various forms of expression.

At the same time, influenced by Austrian nature plants, contemporary artist Lois Weinberger's connection between plants and humans, Zen master D.T. Suzuki, Zen painting, and John Cage, she is drawn to the more momentary intensity of things and the ephemeral nature of things that disappear.

Her inspiration from nature and art eventually led her to the momentary - the eternal, the circle - the connection, the individual - the whole, the wave, and to a more abstract style, including works that focus on process and express the blending of black and white using embroidery, and works dyed from natural flowers, grasses, and fruits.

She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Berlin and had a solo exhibition “BALANCE” 2022, “CYCLE” 2023.

For her solo exhibition in 2022, she collaborated with performance artist Rina Nakano on a performance and installation of five and a half hours of live heartbeats, flower hammering dye, and a space colored with these fabrics.

Since then, she has gone beyond embroidery and painted works, using performance and installation to tackle the process of plants hammering dye to capture a moment, and also to live drawing, using ink bleedings and threads to draw the sounds of a music session,

Also, working on an animation work that films drawings that are drawn and then erased on the theme of plant life.

She is creating works that bring viewers to experience the nature she has experienced through various media and techniques.

Her current research interests also include wolf beliefs and geology, and she has conducted field research in national parks in Germany and shrines in Japan.

She is highly motivated to do residencies, work in various locations, so please contact her anytime if you are interested in.

　Yurika Saito

1990年、東京生まれ、ベルリン在住。

ミクストメディアアーティスト

自然が持つサイクル、瞬間と永遠、繋がりを意識した作品作りを一貫して行う。

様々な土地の自然や文化に触れた経験を通して、鑑賞者に体感を通して感じられるような作品作りに取り組むアーティスト。

東京新宿美術学院での就学後、東京を出て日本国内、カナダ、オーストラリア、ヨーロッパと様々な国や街での文化、自然を体験する。

28才で東京の故郷に戻った際、親族の死に直面し、今まで体験してきた様々な場所での体験、風景、温度、自生植物、それらサイクルがこうした今も地球上で行われていることを意識し、それらの感覚を作品に落とし込むため、2019年ベルリンに渡る。

作品表現を通して様々な手法に挑戦しつつ、同時に現代植物アーティスト、Lois Weinbergerや、禅の第一人者の鈴木大拙や禅画、ジョンケージの作品に影響を受け、より瞬間的なものの強さや消えていくものの儚さをいかに表現できるかを追求する。

彼女が自然や芸術から得た着想はやがて瞬間性と永遠性、円や繋がり、個や全体、波、そういった相反する感覚繋がり、刺繍を用いて白と黒の交わりを表現する作品や、自然の花や草、果実から染色をした叩き染め作品など、よりプロセスを重視した作風へと繋がる。

個展Balanceでは、パフォーマンスアーティスト Rina Nakano との共作パフォーマンスを行った際、生の心臓音と花をハンマーで叩く叩き染め、それらの布で彩られていく空間のパフォーマンス、インスタレーションを5時間半かけて行った。以来、刺繍やペインテイング作品の枠を超え、パフォーマンスやインスタレーション、ダンスとの共作、音楽とのライブドローイング、アニメーション作品などにも取り組み、

彼女が体感を経て感じた自然のあり方を、様々なメディア、手法を通して鑑賞者にも体験させられるような作品作りに取り組んでいる。

現在、狼信仰や地学なども研究対象とし、ドイツの国立公園や日本の神社への現地調査も行っている。

レジデンスや様々な場所での活動にも意欲的に取り組んでいますので、ご興味のある方はいつでもご連絡ください。