Yuka Oyama
About Yuka Oyama
Yuka Oyama (www.yukaoyama.com) is a Japanese-German artist who grew up in Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, USA and Germany. In her current role as Professor of Jewellery Art at HDK-Valand, she leads the MA in Jewellery Art.
As a relational jewellery artist, Oyama’s practice incorporates sculpture, jewellery, video, photography, public interventions, choreographic experimentations and performances. Her life-sized, wearable sculptures function as material provocations that explore the disconnections often felt in contemporary life: the degeneration of human-to-human emotional communication and our sense of belonging. Everyday objects are used to upset these disconnections, facilitating our ability to act beyond set conventions. As object-human hybrids – objectified humans and personified objects – the sculptures are often worn in public theatrical settings to encourage participants to feel more imaginative, gain a different understanding of self and improve capacity to connect to others.
Recent group exhibitions include: The Dowse Art Museum, Wellington (2018); Musee d’Art modern de la Ville de Paris, Paris (2017); Easy!Upstream Gallery, Munich (2016); Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York (2015); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Zentrum für Medien und Technologie, Karlsruhe; Pinakothek der Moderne, München. Solo exhibitions at the Akademirommet, Oslo (2016); Receptions Gallery, Oslo (2016); Oslo Kustforenning, Oslo (2015); the SPACES Gallery, Cleveland (2013).
Yuka Oyama studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA (BFA in Jewelry); the Munich Art Academy, Germany (MFA in Sculpture and Art Jewellery); Oslo National Academy of Arts, Norway (PhD in Art and Craft).