b. 1973, Hyogo, Japan; lives and works Kyoto, Japan

Ryoko Aoki’s work delicately bridges the intimate and the imaginative. Drawing on the overlooked textures of everyday life, Aoki transforms ordinary materials such as graph paper, fabric scraps and ballpoint pen into poetic assemblages that oscillate between drawing and collage often combined and formed into larger installation or video animation. Her practice is rooted in observation and transformation; everyday objects not merely depicted but reinterpreted, offering both strangeness and newness in their familiarity. Wavering lines, asymmetrical forms, and vibrant fields of colour make for playful irregularities that speak to her engagement with both spontaneity and structure. She is closely associated with Japan’s Micropop movement, which reconfigures mundane materials and imagery into gestures of subtle rebellion or quiet magic. Rather than offering fixed narratives, her work invites the viewer into a kind of visual free association where memory, emotion, and fantasy collide. Aoki conjures a symbolic world shaped by innocence, vulnerability, and introspection. Her art is neither entirely autobiographical nor purely conceptual but instead emerges from an internal dialogue that draws meaning from lived experience, symbolism in the world around her and the ineffable, abstract impressions that hover just beneath the surface of consciousness.

Ryoko Aoki’s recent projects include Stories about Boundaries, Take Ninagawa, Tokyo (2024); Matatabi, jasmin Bokugo Gallery, Kyoto (2025); Zureta, The Pawnbroker’s Museum, Tochigi (2025); Pocket Full of Sparks: Sore wa chisainoni totemo oki, curated by Hikotaro Kanehira, kudan house, Tokyo (2025); Earth, Wind, and Fire: Visions of the Future from Asia, curated by Mami Kataoka, Okura Museum of Art, Tokyo (2024); Rokko Meets Art 2024 beyond (with Zon Ito), Hyogo (2024); an arena, Barbati Gallery, Venice (2024); 30 Ways to Go to the Moon, Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions (with Zon Ito), Tokyo (2024); Body, Love, Gender, curated by Reiko Tsubaki, Gana Art Center, Seoul (2023); Worlds in Balance: Art in Japan from the Postwar to the Present, curated by Kenjiro Hosaka, Okura Museum of Art, Tokyo (2023); 15, Take Ninagawa, Tokyo (2023); Thinking about Caring and Motherhood through Contemporary Art, Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki (2023); Vision, Watari-um, Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2022); Some Where Between the Odd and Ordinary (with Zon Ito), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2021); South South Tokyo, Take Ninagawa, Tokyo (2021) and documenta 12: The Migration of Forms, Kassel (2007)

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For Ryoko Aoki's entry on Asia Art Archive's website please click here