Resonance on a Surface
Naomi Okubo, Lighting a Flame, 2025 (detail). Acrylic on raw canvas, 17.9 × 23.9 inches ©Naomi Okubo, courtesy of Fou Gallery
Selected Works
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(New York—June 7, 2025) Fou Gallery is pleased to present Resonance on a Surface, the second solo exhibition by Japanese artist Naomi Okubo, on view from June 7 through July 19. Featuring vibrant acrylic paintings and hand-crafted garments, the exhibition continues Okubo’s exploration of home, intimacy, solitude, and escapism through intricately composed visuals.
Okubo’s practice explores alternative ways of living that slow down the pace of global culture. Okubo’s process begins with digital collages that incorporate photography, drawing, and found imagery. Drawing from architecture, interior design, fashion, and art history to textiles, scientific diagrams, and decorative patterns, she constructs richly layered compositions that blend elements of Japanese culture with Western motifs. By masterfully partially priming the canvas surface, she subtly shapes the viewer’s perceptual experience of depth and materiality.
A recurring motif throughout the exhibition are fire flames—drawn from traditional Japanese painting—which introduces a sense of warmth, light, transformation, and liberation. In her reinterpretation of Dancing in the Flames by Nihonga master Hayami Gyoshu (1894–1935), Okubo employs bokashi, the delicate gradation technique used in Japanese woodblock printing, and overlays floral motifs to create a vivid homage to historical Nihonga traditions.
Across her works, Okubo portrays herself as a feminine archetype, intentionally omitting facial features to allow viewers to project their own interpretations. In Bird Collector, she composes bird imagery sourced from architecture, science, and taxidermy atop a reimagined version of William Morris’ “Trellis” wallpaper, generating a striking tension between tradition and personal symbolism. In Canary Cave, the painted figure wears a patchwork dress made from American quilting fabrics—a medium historically used by American women for storytelling and activism. Okubo will wear this same dress during the exhibition’s opening, further blurring the line between the artist, the artwork, and the act of presentation.
The exhibition also debuts her hand-crafted garments, created through a labor-intensive process of sourcing patterned fabrics and sewing unique pieces. This meditative practice allows Okubo to reflect on how she inhabits her painted worlds, merging art-making with self-presentation and agency.
*The press release is based on an essay authored by Lu Solano.
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Artist
Naomi Okubo (b. 1985, Tokyo, Japan) Having earned her M.F.A from Musashino Art University in 2011, Naomi Okubo lived and worked in New York from 2017 to 2019 with a grant from the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese Government, and then continued her stay under the Yoshino Gypsum Foundation's Overseas Study Program. She returned to Japan in 2020. Her work has continued to exhibit in Asia, Europe, and the U.S.A., including HARPER’S, New York (2024); Fou Gallery, New York (2024/2025); GALLERY MoMo Ryogoku, Tokyo (2023); ELSA ART GALLERY, Taipei (2022); Yoshino Gypsum Art Foundation, Tokyo (2022); Residency Unlimited, New York (2019); Official Japanese Ambassador Residence, New York (2017); Czech Center Art Gallery, New York (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2009) and Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto (2005). In 2024, she had her first solo exhibition in New York at Fou Gallery. She served as a residency artist at mh PROJECT, New York (2019); Residency Unlimited, New York (2017); Art Department of Halland Municipality, Sweden (2014). Obuko has undertaken commissioned work for prestigious publications such as Airbnb Magazine, DIE ZEIT, ARMUSELI, and ZEIT-magazine. Her work can also be found in such periodicals as Pen, Contemporary Art Curator Magazine, Financial Times, Juxtapoz Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Blanc Magazine. Her work is in the collection of Hallands Konstmuseum (Sweden) and Zhuzhong Collection (Beijing).
Curator
Lu Solano (b. Rio de Janeiro) is an independent curator and art consultant whose multidisciplinary projects focus on the intersection between art, science and language in contemporary environments. Solano is particularly interested in developing art exhibitions that reconfigure physical and spatial relationships with the viewer. She is the co-founder of Art in Brackets, an art consultancy that facilitates cross-cultural dialogue between artists, collectors, and institutions in the U.S. and abroad, with a strong focus on New York’s creative communities. Solano previously served as Artistic Director of Residency Unlimited and was a trustee at Equity Gallery. She is a frequent collaborator with the General Consulate of Brazil in New York.
Installation Images
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