Yuka Oyama (1974) is a Japanese-German artist who grew up in Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, USA and Germany. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 2003. Oyama’s artistic practice incorporates sculpture, jewellery, video, photography, public interventions, choreographic experimentations and performances. Her life-sized, wearable sculptures function as material provocations that explore the disconnections often felt in contemporary life: the degeneration of human-to-human emotional communication and our sense of belonging. Everyday objects are used to upset these disconnections, facilitating our ability to act beyond set conventions.As object-human hybrids – objectified humans and personified objects – the sculptures are often worn in public theatrical settings to encourage participants to feel more imaginative, gain a different understanding of self and improve capacity to connect to others.
Yuka Oyama (1974) is a Japanese-German artist who grew up in Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, USA and Germany. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 2003. Oyama’s artistic practice incorporates sculpture, jewellery, video, photography, public interventions, choreographic experimentations and performances. Her life-sized, wearable sculptures function as material provocations that explore the disconnections often felt in contemporary life: the degeneration of human-to-human emotional communication and our sense of belonging. Everyday objects are used to upset these disconnections, facilitating our ability to act beyond set conventions.As object-human hybrids – objectified humans and personified objects – the sculptures are often worn in public theatrical settings to encourage participants to feel more imaginative, gain a different understanding of self and improve capacity to connect to others.
Recent group exhibitions include: The Dowse Art Museum, Wellington (2018); Musee d’Art modern de la Ville de Paris, Paris (2017); Easy!Upstream Gallery, Munich (2016); Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York (2015); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Zentrum für Medien und Technologie, Karlsruhe; Pinakothek der Moderne, München. Solo exhibitions at the Akademirommet, Oslo (2016); Receptions Gallery, Oslo (2016); Oslo Kustforenning, Oslo (2015); the SPACES Gallery, Cleveland (2013).
Yuka Oyama studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA (BFA in Jewelry); the Munich Art Academy, Germany (MFA in Sculpture and Art Jewellery); Oslo National Academy of Arts, Norway (PhD in Art and Craft). In her current role as Professor of Jewellery Art at HDK-Valand, she leads the MA in Jewellery Art.