Fumiko Toda

Artist Statement: 

I have been painting insects since I was a girl in rural Japan. Bugs, snakes, flies, butterflies and countless other tiny fauna have become so familiar and beloved to me that they are at once both subject and medium. I celebrate their existence in vibrant paintings and prints, while also using them to express a sense of loneliness and isolation I still carry with me from a difficult childhood. I had no sense of who I was growing up in Japan. The society is so uniform and I was pushed to behave a certain way. With no expressive outlet, I regularly escaped to a nearby pond, where I would entertain myself for hours, observing and picking up bugs and other wildlife. While they were foreign to me, these creatures were also oddly comforting. When I started studying at the Sugii Art Institution in MIe, I finally felt as if I could be myself. I eventually graduated from Kyoto University of Art and Design in 2000 and moved to New York the following year.