Featured Artist: Akane Yabushita

Akane Yabushita’s artwork invites audiences to travel the world. The delicate brushstrokes in her designs bring the nature, the culture, and the history of a place like Bali, Japan, or New Zealand to life in a way that is palpable and enviable.

 Akane, or akaneyabushita, loves to travel and she can be considered a citizen of the world with no “physical home”; places like Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia have all become “home” to her and make up the pieces of her heart. In fact, she confesses that home is wherever she can be her true self, where she is surrounded by friends, and where she can enjoy nature.

 Akane jokes that she first saw herself as an artist when she “filled the edges of most of my school textbooks with doodles so I could turn them into flipbooks.” She grew up in Japan and her style has been shaped by Japanese history and culture. Moreover, Akane studied traditional Japanese calligraphy as a young girl and has a “personal affection” for it and continues to utilize it in her artwork. She believes it is the tool in her studio that she “can’t live without” and that it “differentiates my style” from others.

 Akane admits, “drawing has been like my best friend” and she can’t “restrict my imagination” on personal artwork without putting a limit on a good friendship. However, she cannot deny that she is “highly critical of myself” when working on a project for a client. Still, this encourages her to “let my inspiration flow” when she is working on a personal piece.

 After she began traveling, her perspective and her style shifted to embrace the diversity and uniqueness that she encountered on her travels; her current projects are all a glimpse into this experience. She loves “strolling around the vibrant local markets, searching for local art and textiles, visiting temples, and more so that I could get a deeper understanding of the countries' histories and culture.” She recently purchased a set of postcards in Penang, Malaysia and loved the way the art was able to convey the “vibe of the place” so well. She, too, wants her artwork to “show this colorful world we live in” and to encourage people to travel and “experience what the world has to offer.”