Drawing Is the Foundation of an Artist’s Work

After graduating from college, Inoue continued on to graduate school, and during that time she studied abroad in India. She lived in a dorm there, and spent the whole year absorbed in drawing. Much of her work still draws inspiration from this year in India.

One-of-a-Kind Works Combining Techniques from Decalcomania and Yuzen Dyeing

Upon completing graduate school, Inoue joined the Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo craft workshop. Her graduate study had been focused solely on decalcomania techniques, leading her to worry that her work lacked a sense of originality. It was around this time that she took a class in Yuzen dyeing that changed the course of her career: her interest in Yuzen and its techniques singlehandedly resolved all of her anxieties about her artistic output.

Creating with the Motif of “the Beginnings of Life”

Inoue’s art features a recurring theme of “the beginnings of life.” The unclear designs created through decalcomania printing, she has noted, remind her of the process of something being born — much of the time, she decides on designs based on her hopes or imagination. For an animal-themed design, for instance, she might think about how she wants it to look, or what sort of life an animal might want to live.

Adding Enrichment to Life through Vivid Color Gradients

A key feature of Inoue’s work is its use of gradients. Ordinarily, these are used to blend between similar colors, like yellow to orange or red, but her work instead features gradients between entirely different colors, like red and green. According to the artist, these works, with their vivid gradients, offer a sense of joy and liveliness to the viewer, and perhaps even provide a bit of cheering up when people are feeling low — the stories born of this interplay of colors surely lend a bit of lively cheer to everyday life.