Maya Fuji
A Word That Doesn't Exist・存在しない言葉
2023
Acrylic, oil pastel, charcoal, and rhinestone on canvas
Courtesy the artist and Charlie James Gallery

This work is on loan for the exhibition, Living Here, at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, June 20 - December 20, 2025

Growing up biracial, she attended school in both California’s Bay Area and Kanazawa in western Japan. In A Word That Doesn't Exist・存在しない言葉, she remembers the classroom experience of unsuccessfully trying to find a word that meant “diversity” in Japanese on a mechanical translator. In other paintings she reimagines Japanese spirit beings as contemporary women who wear up-to-date nail art on elegant fingers inspired by ukiyo-e imagery from the Edo period. Cultural migration takes on a physical shape. Can the spirits migrate, just like people? Or do they only stay in Japanese homes? The question is heightened by the knowledge that these spirits are traditionally formed by the accumulated energy of families living in a single place for years.