about

Akiko Ueda（b. 1983, Kyoto, Japan）received her B.F.A. in painting from Musashino Art University in 2006. Subsequently, she received her M.F.A. in painting from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels in 2020, followed by completing her M.F.A. in Lithography in 2023. Ueda approaches painting not merely as a means of reproduction or representation. Rather, her practice interrogates the transformative processes of phenomena and their catalysts.⁠⁠ Her early attempts to capture the continuity of time, movement, and events within a static image have, in recent years, evolved into a practice that incorporates unpredictable change and improvisation, exploring the shifting interplay between déjà vu and jamais vu. Akiko Ueda was awarded the Tamayo Iemura’s Prize at the Shell Art Award in 2009, and the Ohara Museum of Art Prize at VOCA 2011. In 2018, she went to Belgium as a recipient of the POLA Art Foundation Grant for Overseas Study by Young Artists. Since then, she has expanded her activities internationally, with solo exhibitions in Belgium, Shanghai, and beyond. Recent solo exhibitions include KOTARO NUKAGA, Tokyo (2025), Gene Gallery, Shanghai (2024), Centrale for Contemporary Art, Brussels (2021), and Yuka Tsuruno Gallery, Tokyo (2018, 2021). Her works are held in the collections of Soho House Tokyo, Nanjo Museum of Art, the Ohara Museum of Art, Kiyosu City Haruhi Museum of Art, and Kitakata City Museum of Art.