YURIA OKAMURA
Temple of Nature
21 April - 22 May 2021
Yuria Okamura’s drawing practice brings together and reinterprets diverse metaphysical imaginings from across cultures and histories through the utopian language of geometry and diagrammatic aesthetics. Okamura maps and reconfigures geometric forms that reference patterns in nature, esoteric symbolism, alchemical diagrams, religious architecture and decoration, and spiritualist abstract painting.
Okamura also deploys wall drawing to create immersive installations by using architecture and gardens as visual metaphors. Positing the garden as a site of harmony between nature and culture, she draws up garden-like spaces combining geometric and botanical images and enshrines nature within imagined architecture. In this way, her work envisions an open-ended contemplative space where nature and culture, and the physical and metaphysical worlds come together.
Yuria Okamura is a Melbourne-based artist whose practice encompasses drawing, painting and installation. Okamura holds an MFA (Research) from the University of Melbourne and a BFA (Honours) from RMIT University. She has received a number of awards, scholarships and residencies including an Australia Council Career Development Grant, Stuart Black Memorial Scholarship, Ursula Hoff Institute Drawing Award, Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award, RMIT Honours Travelling Endowment Scholarship, Sanskriti Kendra Residency (India), The Studios at MASS MoCA (USA), Abbotsford Convent Studio Residency (Australia), Bayside City Council Residency (Australia) and Takt Artist Residency (Germany). She has exhibited at Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne; Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne; La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo; C3 Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne; Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne; Five Walls Projects, Melbourne; Tributary Projects, Canberra; Kunstraum Tapir, Berlin, Germany; Langford 120, Melbourne; Seventh Gallery, Melbourne; Japan Foundation Gallery, Sydney; and Mølla På Grim, Kristiansand, Norway. Her work has been featured in international magazines including Fukt (Germany) and Create Mag (USA).
