5036 W Pico Blvd, CA 90019, Los Angeles, United States
Open: Tue-Sat 10am-6pm
Artist: Asuka Anastacia Ogawa
Perrotin Los Angeles presents Yume, the gallery’s first exhibition with Asuka Anastacia Ogawa. Named after the Japanese word for “dream,” Yume brings together a new body of paintings that explore meditative stillness and maternal care through dreamlike worlds inspired by nature and spirituality.
The stillness of Ogawa’s paintings contrasts with an upbringing shaped by movement. Born in Tokyo, the artist lived in Brazil as a young child, attended high school in Stockholm, and earned a BFA at Central Saint Martins in London. Following years of continual movement, Ogawa settled in Los Angeles about six years ago, where she found an unexpected source of creative calm in the city. The works for Yume were created in her tranquil downtown studio, where light streams in through a large window that overlooks passing cars on the Sixth Street Bridge.
At the center of Ogawa’s practice are her genderless figures, their dark skin rendered in rich earth tones. They often meet the viewer’s gaze directly while participating in scenes of quiet ritual that evoke Shinto and animist traditions, in which spiritual presence extends beyond the human world into nature. Inspired by teachings from her Japanese and Afro-Brazilian grandmothers, the figures embody a tender sense of maternal comfort and protection. She began drawing “the babies,” as she calls them, in college, intuitively filling pages with their likenesses. Over time, they came to inhabit worlds of their own; as Ogawa puts it, “they are not from the earth, but from somewhere else.”
These sources of inspiration, including spiritual conversations with her grandmothers, intuitive downloads, and chance encounters with animals, continue to inform her practice. Flowers and animals often take on human-like qualities, suggesting a fluid boundary between people and the natural world. For this exhibition, “fuwafuwa,” a Japanese expression evoking fluffiness or softness, became a point of inspiration after a white, fluffy flower that appeared to her in a dream. Ogawa carried this feeling of lightness into the studio, infusing the paintings with an ethereal softness. In Hiraki (2026), a similar white flower hangs delicately before a figure’s profile.
In Flower Dance (2026), two figures sway in tandem, their arms raised above their heads. Flowers bloom from their palms, while miniature doppelgängers sprout from their heads. The exhibition’s title finds an echo in Yume (2026), where a pastel-colored bird’s strikingly human eye meets our own. Birds became a recurring motif after a parrot at a pet shop repeatedly returned to Ogawa, bringing her objects clasped in its claws. This small, tender exchange reflects the quiet attentiveness that animates each painting.
Ogawa’s dreamscapes also create worlds where feminine energy can safely flourish. Against a history in which safe spaces for those most vulnerable and marginalized have often been few and far between, these imagined worlds offer a glimpse into peaceful reclamation. Each painting quietly invites the viewer to linger: take a deep breath, imagine a dialogue with an unlikely creature, notice an unexpected treasure along a familiar route, or find a story in the clouds.
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