REI ZUKIDOU

Rei Zukidou (b.1989, Japan) explores the tension between physical presence and psychological residue through both abstract and figurative painting.  Zukidou studied Fine Art at Tokyo Zokei University and later completed international short courses at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Her practice investigates relationships between the physical and metaphysical, the conscious and unconscious, and visible and invisible forces.

Zukidou's practice is defined by its physical immediacy. Working directly on unprimed canvas spread across the studio floor, she eliminates the traditional structural distance between painter and support. By using her entire body to navigate the surface, Zukidou engages in a process where mark-making functions simultaneously as a record of endurance and an investigation into subconscious spatial syntax. Through a dense, deliberate stratification of graphite, charcoal, ink, pastel, and oil stick, her abstract compositions build tactile topographies that capture the speed, weight, and friction of the physical form against raw textile.

In her figurative works, this formal intensity turns inward toward anatomical structure. Rather than rendering descriptive or decorative figures, Zukidou presents forms that appear bound within their own biological boundaries confronting questions of physical vulnerability, historical memory, and structural power dynamics. Across both modalities, transformation is treated not as a passage toward a resolved state, but as an active, ongoing material condition in which form and meaning remain perpetually in flux.