Etsuko Oide, now living in Denmark, was born and raised on the island Hokkaido in Japan. A crucial point of Oide’s artistic career was a meeting with the artist Yoshio Nakajima, who at the time was one of the so called “Cobra-artists” in Sweden. They remained close friends ever since, and Yoshio is still a mentor figure for Oide. In 1980, Etsuko Oide finished her 2-year art education at Sundsgården in Sweden and had her first solo exhibition. Afterwards, she was educated as a graphic designer and continued to work with graphic design and illustration. From 1990 till 2006, she had her own design company in Tokyo, and in 2006 she moved to Denmark.
Etsuko Oide works primarily with acrylics and aquarelles, but in some cases she also incorporates other media into her works, such as paper or fabric. Her artworks have light and fine appearance, often brimming with bright colours against a light background that are divided by contrasting strokes of black. The apparent influence of Japanese calligraphy merges with more expressive but still light and airy style. The combination of these techniques results in her works appearing almost hypnotic and meditative, all while remaining to be full of life and sentiment. Oide’s art fuses the inspiration from the East with Scandinavian simplicity. Faces, animals, and other recognizable elements appear on canvasses, while at other times her works seem abstract; streams of colour in swirling motion.
Art Historian, Maria Cecilie Odgaard Jensen
