Nana Funo

Nana Funo was born in 1983 in Shizuoka Prefecture. She graduated from Osaka University of Arts, Japan (BFA) in 2006 and completed the Graduate Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto, Japan (MFA) in 2008. She currently lives and works in Shizuoka. Funo elaborately and boldly develops her works as if sublimating the experiences, sensations, and emotions of her own life into a new world that transcends time and space. A major characteristic of Funo’s work is the way in which she covers the initial image she has depicted with layers of paint and then paints over it with new motifs. The subtle interrelationships between these different hidden layers creates an elegant complexity. Of this, the artist states, “Things that existed long ago, things that most people no longer remember are sealed within the image, and these become the substance from which new stories arise.” Her works seem to mirror the very structure of our world, where memories, stories, and times of the past overlay and intersect to form the present, and her process of working gives rise to a “a spatial complexity that cannot be captured in an expression of space in which images float or overlap.” (Mitsue Nagaya, “VOCA 2009” catalogue). Funo’s paintings have a lustrous texture reminiscent of porcelain or engraved metalwork, and a layered quality akin to embroidery or woven fabric, yet viewers will certainly be taken by surprise to learn that such effect is achieved solely through the meticulous and delicate brushstrokes of acrylic paint. Her major solo exhibitions include “I can go there. So can you” (Tomio Koyama Gallery Kyobashi, Tokyo, 2026), “Born for This” (Tomio Koyama Gallery Tennoz, Tokyo, 2024), Takashimaya Osaka 6F Gallery Next (Osaka, Japan 2023), Meets by NADiff, SHIBUYA PARCO (Tokyo, Japan, 2020) and “No Matter How Many Times I Touch, It is Still Far Away” (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2019). Her major group exhibitions include “NEW NATURE” (PATERSON ZEVI, London, UK, 2020), “The Way of Painting” (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2014) and “VOCA 2009: The Vision of Contemporary Art” (The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2009). Funo’s works are housed in the collections of Aman Tokyo, The JAPIGOZZI Collection, MONTBLANC and GBU Japan, Takahashi Collection and Takamatsu City Museum of Art.