Emiko Aida

Emiko Aida was born in Tokyo, Japan and graduated from MA, Fine Art, The Tokyo University of Arts / MA Printmaking, Royal College of Art, UK. She is currently a painter, printmaker and mixed media artist living in London, UK. Her work is exhibited in the U.K., the U.S.A., Italy, China and Japan and in many private, public and corporate collections including the New York Public Library, USA, Guangdong Museum of Art, China, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK and Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. She is a member of Royal Society of Painter–Printmakers, U.K.

“I have spent all my life in urban settings: the first half in Tokyo and the second half in London. I have a deep curiosity about urban dwellers, myself among them. As for me, what is the relationship between my past and my present? Where do I belong? Where am I going? These endless questions evoke in me a sense of the fragility and loneliness of humankind. It seems like all lives and their experiences cross between reality and illusion. My work asks questions without sound and I listen for the answers to try to find out where I am. After graduating from The Royal College of Art, London, I have continued to develop my inner strength, and strongly believe that Art is the rock of my mental stability.
I am interested in Nature. Flowers represent beauty and the mathematical in Nature, through numbers of petals, arrangement of seeds with Fibonacci sequence and so on. It is a mysterious connection to a universe rule. As an Eastern myself, the Lotus flower is especially meaningful. It symbolizes spirituality, sprouting and eventually blooming with sacred beauty. Yet also the Lotus flower needs mud to grow. In many ways we as humans can learn from flowers.”

2021 International Prize PEGASUS for Arts, Italy
2020 Artist of the year Finalist Award, Circle Foundation, France
2018 The Columbia Threadneedle Prize exhibition, UK
2016 International Print Triennial, Forum, Sweden
2014 Thomas Word Award, National Open Competition, UK
2014 Vivien Leigh Bequest Prize, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
2014 Purchase prize, 16th SPACE International Print Biennial, Seoul, Korea
2010 The Qijiang International Print Exhibition, Guangdong Museum of Art, China
1997 The Nordstern Award, Royal Academy of Arts Summer exhibition, London, UK
1990 Kochi International Triennial Exhibition, Ino Cho Paper Museum, Kochi, Japan