Shoko Okumura
Born in 1983 in Chiba Prefecture, Shoko Okumura is an artist based in Milan and Tokyo.
She graduated from the Department of Japanese Painting at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2008.
Immediately after graduation, she moved to Italy to study fresco restoration techniques and has since continued to live in Milan.
Combining traditional Japanese materials such as mineral pigments, gold and silver leaf with pigments used in Italian fresco painting, she explores her own distinctive visual language shaped by both traditions.
Seeing Japan from abroad deepened her fascination with the country’s unique spiritual relationship with nature - its rituals, seasonal customs, and ancient sensibilities.
This perspective has become a central theme throughout her work.
Her artworks have been exhibited in galleries and cultural institutions across Italy, as well as in Japan at major venues including Takashimaya and Mitsukoshi art gallery.
Alongside her artistic practice, she collaborates with fashion brands in Italy. In 2023, one of her works was recreated in Nishijin textile for the suites of the Bulgari Hotel Tokyo, further expanding the scope of her creative activities.
In her tree-themed series, she has partnered with a tree-planting organization to develop a system that enables reforestation through her artworks—an initiative she continues to pursue.
Education
2008
Bachelor of Japanese paintings - Tokyo University of the Arts
Moved to Italy and enrolled in the restoration course of fresco painting at Università Internazionale dell'Arte.
Winner of the Japanese "Horita Scholarship Foundation"
2010
Winner of Japanese Government Scholarship for Art studies
2011
Master of Restoration of affreschi paintings - International University of Art – Florence, Italy
Exhibition
2025
Solo exhibition at art complex space "Keiro" Tokyo
Maison ＆object, Paris
Affordable Art Fair, London
Affordable Art Fair Berlin, Germany
Affordable Art Fair Brussels, Belgium
2024
Solo exhibition "Nightfall in The Forest" Takashimaya Art Gallery, Tokyo
Solo exhibition “Sacri legni” Te Palace, Mantova, Italy
Milan Design Week, Maison Toma, Milan, Italy
Affordable Art Fair, London
Affordable Art Fair Berlin, Germany
Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong
Affordable Art Fair Brussels, Belgium
2023
Solo exhibition "Sacri legni" Manifiesto Blanco Gallery / Milan, Italy
Solo exhibition in Mitsukoshi Art Weeks / Tokyo, Japan
Affordable Art Fair London, UK
Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong
Affordable Art Fair Hamburg, Germany
Affordable Art Fair Stockholm, Sweden
2022
Solo exhibition "Blossoms of Hope" Shinjuku Takashimaya Art Gallery, Tokyo Japan
Affordable Art Fair Bruxelles, Belgium
Art Fair (un)fair Milano, Italy
Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong
Affordable Art Fair Hamburg, Germany
2021
Duo exhibition Affordable Art Fair / Hamburg,Germany
Duo exhibition "Trasparenze fuggevoli della natura" villa Zari / Brianza, Italy
Affordable Art Fair Amsterdam, Netherlands
Affordable Art Fair Bruxelles, Belgium
2020
Solo exhibition "Finestre di Luce nei boschi" Manifiesco Blanco gallery, Milan
Solo exhibition "Universo Fluttuante" Vision Quest 4 rosso gallery, Genova
On-line Affordable Art Fair
Group exhibition"Bino-yokan”2020 Takashimaya Art Gallery (national tour exhibition) / Japan
2019
Solo exhibition "Trasparenze crepuscolari" Centro di cultura giapponese, Milan
Duo exhibition "Seifu-meigetsu" Takashimaya Shinjuku Art Gallery, Tokyo
Group exhibition "Stati d'Arte" Fidelia Palace / Spello
Group exhibition"Finalist exhibition Arteamcup 2019" Nobel palace / Sanremo
2018
Solo exhibition"Natura sussurata" Corte degli Artisti gallery / Milan
Group exhibition"Ko-kin" Paraventi giapponesi Nobili gallery / Milan
Group exhibition "S’io m’intuassi, come tu t’immii” MostraMi, Fabbrica del vapore / Milan
Group exhibition "Arte giapponese" Lante Palace / Rome
2017
Solo exhibition "Natura sussurrata" Frammenti d'Arte gallery / Rome
Solo exhibition "Natura sussurrata" Studio Arti Floreali / Rome
Group exhibition"Eterne stagione" Monferrato Palace / Alessandria
Group exhibiton "Arte Migrante" la torre Viscontea / Lecco
2016
Group exhibition "Domani" Tokyo National Museum / Tokyo
Group exhibition "Kimigayo" MABIC / Maranello
Group exhibition "Arte giapponese" Art space spazioD/ Lecco
2015
Solo exhibition "Essenza della natura" Arte Giappone gallery, Milan
Group exhibition "Esopo" Abantgarde tattoo and Art gallery / Sesto San Giovanni
2014
Group exhibition "Poetessa Rengetsu" Arte Giappone gallery / Milan
2013
Solo exhibition "Kacho-Fugetsu" Spazio porpora gallery / Milan
2012
Solo exhibition "Arte nella natura" Asteria Center / Milan
Group exhibition "Beauty japan" Japan Matsuri fair / Bellinzona, Swissland
2010
Solo exhibition Lucca comics festival, Romano palace / Lucca
Other works / Collaborations
2023
Collaboration with HOSOO, Artwork for Hotel Bulgari Tokyo
2022
Collaboration with Serapian Jewelry box Sho-chiku-bai for HOMO faver, Venice Italy
2021
Collaboration with CABANA wall paper, Milan Italy
2020
Book cover for "Kado - way of flowers" of Luca Maracciotti
Collaboration with TOMA Shoes for Milan Fashion Week
2019
Collaboration with TOMA Shoes for Milan Fashion Week
Drowings with Sumi ink realized to the book "La vita del Poeta Basho e i suoi Haiku"
2016
Presentation "Materials of Japanese traditional paintings" at Luciana Matalon Foundation / Milan
2013
Art works made the cover of five Japanese food magazines / Italy
2012
Presentation "Traditional techniques and materials of Nihonga" at Wow Comics Museum / Milan
Presentation "How was born the Manga through Hokusai" at Lucca Comics
2011
Illustrated artworks for “Vanity Fair” Magazine / Italy
2010
Holding Japanese traditional paintings courses at Japanese culture center, still does / Milan
Awards
2015
Winner of "The Adachi Contemporary Ukiyoe Award" , Tokyo, Japan
2018
Finalist, contemporary painting competition "S’io m’intuassi, come tu t’immii”
2019
Winner of Focus Genova award and Cabana award of Contemporary Art competition “Arteam Cup 2019”
Seasons passing, colors waning and sounds merging towards a renewed harmony have always, across all cultures, been a source both of art inspiration through its myriad of expressions and of deep emotions for souls open to the world’s wonders.
The Japanese love of nature and its manifestations is well recognized.
This style of painting is more demanding than what appears at first glance. An intent gazer must mesh palpable first impressions with subtle hints and allusions, thereby expanding one’s extrinsic perceptive vision, the image within the frame, to the inner self – of both artist and observer - to which the image truly appeals.
Things fleeting, seasons passing and cosmic life, in short the feeling of “impermanence” that renders the spiritual equation so unique and fascinating, is a deepfelt sentiment within the Soul of Japan; which most certainly finds its utmost expressiveness in the depiction of the twilights, whose moments of transient luminosity arouse silent and wondersome expectation.
The “melancholy of things” (mono no aware) however does not impede from locking its essentiality in the moment, unrepeatable and so, in its own right, permanent.
More so than a canon of beauty, mono no aware is a way of approaching the world typical of the Japanese spirit, that is not conjectured upon, but rather is lived, and which also finds expression in painting, of which
Shoko Okumura has for years been an envoy and, in a certain sense, messenger.