Yuko Kimura is a Contemporary Japanese Artist based in Cleveland Ohio. She was born in Oakland California and Raised in Tokyo, Japan. Later, she returned to the U.S. in 1989. Kimura received her MFA from the University of Michigan School of Art and Design in 1997 and her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1994. Kimura’s works have been collected and exhibited nationally and internationally. Notably, she was invited to be a part of “Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper”, a traveling exhibition curated by Meher McArthur. The exhibition features artwork by nine different Modern and Contemporary Japanese Artists who use washi in their artistic practices, and it will travel throughout the U.S until 2026.

“These nine contemporary Japanese artists are revisiting their nation’s traditional material and elevating it into a medium for expressive and often spectacular works of art.”
– Meher McArthur, Curator

Yuko’s works are primarily created through the use of etching, aquatint, monotype, and paper collage. Kimura’s works often also incorporate found materials including: woodblock-printed book pages, or antique Japanese Woodblock Prints, which have been eaten away by mushi (small worms which eat Japanese mulberry fiber), handmade mulberry paper made by the artist, and mulberry bark fiber. For Kimura, transparency, form, and texture all take priority as she constructs her two and three-dimensional multi-media works on paper. A common theme of Yuko’s work is the Japanese aesthetic concept of Wabi-Sabi, a focus on the beauty and acceptance of the imperfect and the temporary.