Artist Statement/ Biography

Shoko Masunaga has been exploring the possibilities of painting by focusing on relationships between art work and space, and mutual interaction. Her work is deeply involved in her daily life. She has various methods and processes which are connected by her main purpose to create paintings that are deformed, dismantled and re-composed. Her works can viewed as either two-dimensional or three-dimensional. There is a dynamic within her work that moves back and forth between these elements. For example, she removes canvas from a frame and manipulates it to recreate it into various objects. She always creates works empirically while facing the fundamental problem of painting. The experimental activity is connecting various genres, trying to create a new image of painting.

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Shoko Masunaga started her career in Kyoto city Japan after graduating from Seian Zoukei College of Art and Design in 2001. From 2006, she was based in Tokyo Japan. Her awards & grants include Arts Challenge 2012, HolbeinScholarship 2017, and Agency for Cultural Affairs Scholarship program of Japan 2018. Her main exhibition in recent years was a solo exhibition at Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito in 2018. She participated in "VOCA-The vision of contemporary art 2017"(The Ueno Royal Museum) by The National Art Center Tokyo curator's recommendation. She has also exhibited solo and group exhibitions in Tokyo and other cities in Japan. In addition, she participated in activities with four female artists as a member of art collective "Sabbatical Company” since 2015.