Yuko Nasu, on the one hand, says she likes to guess people's history and personality through studying their appearance. On the other, she says she only usually paints imaginary rather than specific people because she has learnt from many that she can – or should – never judge a person by his or her appearance. Her work is about how stereotypes and prejudices are easily created as a result of our assumptions.
Nasu's work reflects her curiosity as to what sorts of things differentiate one person from another, from skin, hair and eye colour, to voice and dress. In a continuing quest to identify for herself what the most important factors in this process might be, Nasu creates series of portraits.
Her gestural paintings give us only a hint of these markers, creating both a composite everyman/woman and a mirror in which for us to see whomever we want to see.
Nasu says she is interested in drawing someone whom no one knows, not someone famous or 'special'. She does not want to exclude the potential that the viewer, including herself, could actually get to know the person in the portrait, or at least be reminded of someone they do know.
Paul Stone, 2008
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