Naoyo FUKUDA: A Spoonful of Salvation

Naoyo Fukuda (b. 1967 Saitama Prefecture, Japan) transforms books, stationery items, letters, handkerchiefs, and other personal belongings that surround her into conceptual sculptures, collages, and art objects.

 

The artist's works are not created with the original purpose of making artworks, but rather from a very personal and quiet impulse, as she repeatedly and meticulously performs actions such as cutting, clipping, folding, bleaching, and embroidering through the intervention of coincidence and unconsciousness. As the original meaning and function of these works gradually disappear and their existence fades away, they emerge before us transformed into works of art, as if resurrected. Fukuda's most representative works include “Things Washed Ashore,” made from sculpted erasers, and the “Winged” series, made from books with each page folded in on itself.

 

Fukuda is also a talented poet. She has been creating palindromes that sound the same whether read from the beginning or the end, a style that is truly unique and has resulted in many palindromic poetry publications. Fukuda explains that “Art is to penetrate matter to its very core, and the ultimate in matter is the particle of language.” For Fukuda, art and palindromes are inseparably bound at their core.

 

Fukuda received a BFA and a MFA in oil painting from Tokyo University of the Arts. She lived in Washington state, U.S.A. from 1994 to 2000. She is represented by Yukiko Koide Presents.