FITA Agency / Juliana Matsumura

Drawing, Installation, Photography, Video

Juliana Matsumura

︎ julianamatsumura
︎ julianamatsumura.com
︎Artwork Archive

Juliana Matsumura was born in Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo in 1993. She is a Japanese-Brazilian visual artist. She lives and works in Lisbon. She graduated in Drawing at Ar.Co School (2017 / Portugal), and attended the Bachelor in Textile and Fashion at the University of São Paulo (2011-2014 /Brazil) with an academic merit exchange scholarship to the University of Lisbon (2013 / Portugal), at the same university she attended the Bachelor in Arts and Humanities (2019-2020).

She participated in 2019 and 2020 in the critical accompaniment for visual artists NowHere Lisbon, coordinated by curator Cristiana Tejo and artist Marilá Dardot. She was selected for the Visual Arts Course of the Luso-American Development Foundation in 2022, in partnership with Arquipélago - Contemporary Arts Center. The artist recently received a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation with the residency project entitled "Kawa Kami" in 2021, developed in 2022 in the heritage of Japanese immigration in Brazil, the Casarão do Chá (São Paulo).

Her artistic practice focuses on drawing, multimedia explorations and site-specific projects. Matsumura is interested in worldviews that arise from the phenomenological interpretation of Nature and its elements, originating archetypes and imaginaries. These systems of signification open horizons of aesthetic speculation of the ethereal, the invisible, and the spiritual, a frequent exercise in her practice. The artist visually explores conceptual windows, membranes, passages and portals as disruptions of thresholds such as imagination/reality, visible/invisible, presence/absence. There is an ephemeral aspect to her work that contributes to the notion of fragmentation and reconstruction, construction and destruction, very present in the Drawing process and in her poetic universe.

She has been exhibiting her work since 2016, and has participated in artist residencies, workshops, events and collaborative projects in Lisbon, São Paulo and London. Selected exhibitions: 'diaphanous' (solo exhibition) curated by Andreia César at Atelier Concorde, Lisbon (2023); 'key in the sawdust' group exhibition at Arquipélago Centro de Artes, São Miguel Island (2022); 'The Crypt' (pop-up solo exhibition) curated by Isabel Cassey at DUPLEX AIR, Lisbon (2022); 'Kawa-Kami' (solo exhibition) at Casarão do Chá, São Paulo (2022); 'Corpo-Fumo' (solo exhibition) curated by the Tarimba Collective - Espaço Cultural Mercês, Lisbon (2021); 'Trauma Response' curated by Judith Hofer - DUPLEX AIR, Lisbon (2021); 'Entorno' group exhibition curated by the Yellow Collective - Fábrica Braço de Prata, Lisbon (2021); 'Common Ground' group exhibition - Atelier Concorde (2021); 'Water Memories' - How many A4 fit in Áquatro - curated by the Tarimba Collective at Áquatro building, Barreiro (2020); 'Surgit' solo project exhibition at NowHere Lisboa, Lisbon (2019); 'GRÃO -Artists in Residence' - Antiga Capitania do Museu de Aveiro, Aveiro (2020); 'Mostra Jovens Criadores' 2018 promoted by Fundação da Juventude - NOVA SBE, Carcavelos (2019); 'Evocatório' group exhibition with Maria Albergaria at MUTE Gallery, Lisbon (2018); 'Platform for Emerging Arts #18' group exhibition at Leyden Gallery, London (2018) and 'Encontros do Olhar' group show coordinated by Fábio Delduque - Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2016). Artist Residencies: 'Kawa-Kami' project supported by Gulbenkian Foundation and Associação Casarão do Chá - Casarão do Chá, São Paulo (2021-2022); 'Grão, Artistic and Research Residency' - Quinta das Relvas, Albergaria-a-Velha (2019); Printmaking Residency - Atelier Lasar Segall, São Paulo (2018); Printmaking Residency - Atelier Piratininga, São Paulo (2017); Re-act Art Residency - Ilha Terceira (2015).

Fulgor#1 (2023)