
UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
Las Vegas, Nevada
We believe everyone deserves access to art that challenges our understanding of the present and inspires us to create a future that makes space for us all.
MessageLiving Here
- June 20, 2025 - December 20, 2025
- Exhibition
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- Artwork
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- Artists
Maya Fuji
Pareidolia, 2024
Acrylic and rhinestone on canvas
Courtesy of 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
“The longer I spend time in the U.S. I’ve noticed the way certain habits have shifted and morphed, often re-emerging as new ways of being. I often surprise myself by the unexpected ways certain parts of each culture have taken root within me,” Maya Fuji said during an interview with Artsin Square. In her paintings she visualizes the story of that shifting, morphing experience.
Growing up biracial, she attended school in both California’s Bay Area and Kanazawa in western Japan. In her 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.
- Created: 2024