Today we’d like to introduce you to Ayumi Nakao
Hi Ayumi, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve loved drawing since I was little and I thought it would be great to live with drawing in my life. I went to a design school becoming an illustrator. However, my paintings began to reveal what my inner feelings as I continued to painting. I moved to study painting in New York to master my art and to know how is like an art in the world. I had valuable experience as artist here. I tried out fields that I had never done before, such as printmaking and sculpture, and I felt that my creativity was expanding in different fields. Sometime I lost how to express myself, but in the end, I felt the most accomplished by believing in myself and painting what I want to is best to expressing myself, and people empathize with my artwork. No matter where I am, I want to create what I think is good and would like to find people who empathize with my artworks.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think it is not smooth road for me. Very difficult to make money with my painting, but I need money to continue painting. When I make a big decision, when my paintings are not appreciated, sometimes feel discouraged and think it would be easier to just quit. Even so, I continue to painting because it calms my mind and gives me joy in living. I just love to painting.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a painter. I do printmaking and sculpture, but I believe that my form of expression lies in painting. In an exhibition, I did live painting to create a mural that will take up the entire wall of the gallery. People could see the production process, they had fun and I had joy that not same feel in the studio alone. I would like to continue what paint large murals and see them enjoyed by many people.
I am good at expressing the inner world through human’s lines and the texture of paint. That have showed the struggles of living, emotions that many kind of feel but there are beauty and strength.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Go to see a lot of art. It can help to develop my creativity.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ayumi.nakao/
- Other: https://ayuminakao.stores.jp
Image Credits
Live paint on gallery wall at exhibition in 2006
Painting that done at exhibition in 2009
Black Rain, Oil and graphite on paper, 2024
Floating Existence, Oil and graphite on panel, 2022
Judgement, Mixed media on paper, 2024
Me, Mixed media on paper, 2024
Untitled, Oil and graphite on panel, 2023
People 02, Lithograph, 2016
(This credits is same order with image upload)
