Yukako Maabe – Embracing air | 空白

Born in Tokyo in 1994, Manabe graduated from the Japanese Painting Department at Tokyo University of the Arts and later completed her master's in Printmaking at the same university. She employs techniques from both Japanese painting and printmaking to explore the boundary between everyday life and imagination. Major exhibitions include her solo show "たたずむあの人(The girl, standing still)" at Isetan Shinjuku Tokyo, as well as her participation in ART FAIR TOKYO 2018 at the Tokyo International Forum and Art Expo Malaysia (MECC). From 2019 to 2020, she studied in Poland as an ERASMUS+ scholarship student.

I start creating my work from the question, 'Does something that exists only in my mind mean it doesn't exist in the world?'

If I visualize something that exists only in my mind, does that mean it exists in the world? Or is it when I show it to someone? Or is it when it takes shape in someone else's mind? At that moment, have I slightly altered the composition of the world?