Hikari Shimoda was born in 1984 in Nagano, Japan, where she currently lives and works. Shimoda first studied illustration at the prestigious Kyoto Saga University of Art and Aoyama Juku School before beginning her career as a professional contemporary artist in 2008. Soon after, she was selected for her first solo exhibition at Motto Gallery in Tokyo and has since held exhibitions in galleries worldwide, including Japan, China, the United States, and Canada.
Shimoda works in a variety of materials mixed with the influence of street art and contemporary pop codes. She credits the Japanese manga and anime she grew up with as the main source of inspiration for her work.
Shimoda’s work expresses modern day issues in colourful and figurative techniques.
Often depicting starry-eyed children, dressed in heroic costumes resembling Superman and magical girls, an anime sub-genre of young girls who uses magic, revealing problems and struggles in contemporary society through a juxtaposition of brushwork, text, and collage.
They also represent our adult desire to nurture the children of the world and to defend the world we have built. Shimoda’s characters live in a world where fantasy meets reality, past meets future, life meets death and a world that is yet to be reborn. Not only eyes communicate each character’s personality, “they are anyone who just exists”, and a reflection of the artist’s own feelings and ideas.
