About
Asami Nakamura is a Japanese abstract artist based in the unceded ancestral land of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səlílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations, also known as Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
She grew up in the countryside of Japan, where her playground was in nature — she was always fond of creating art with trees and leaves from the mountain. Her painting journey began in elementary school, where she attended art school for six years to learn the basics. At university, she studied fashion, architecture, and chromatics, the science of colour. After graduating, she became a food stylist, learning how colour, material, and composition could shape the way people perceive beauty and value.
Asami had always felt she wanted more freedom and room to imagine than her environment in Japan seemed to allow. She moved to Vancouver on a working holiday visa, and found, unexpectedly, a place that encouraged her to return to painting — and to imagine it as something more than a hobby. She continues to draw inspiration from Vancouver's abundant, ever-changing nature: its patterns, textures, and colours quietly inform her work.
It wasn't until she became a mother in her mid-30s that Asami was diagnosed with ADHD — a discovery that reframed years of feeling out of step with the world around her. She has come to see it not as a limitation but as a different way of noticing: drawn to the imperfect, the unfinished, and the patterns that only emerge with time.
Asami's practice combines abstract painting with hand embroidery, a technique inspired by her long-standing appreciation for fiber art. Stitching by hand — slow, repetitive, impossible to replicate by machine — mirrors the way her work accumulates over time: each thread a small trace of attention, each resulting pattern slightly imperfect, and for that, quietly beautiful.
The process itself is one she returns to for its stillness — hours spent stitching in silence offer a rare kind of focus, a space where her mind settles and the outside world recedes.
In her own words: 'I hope my work offers a quiet sense of recognition — that beauty doesn't require perfection, only time.
CV
Asami Nakamura (b. 1988, Hiroshima, Japan)
based in Vancouver, Canada
Education
Women's University, Bachelor’s Degree in Life Design with a focus on Fashion Design, Hiroshima, Japan
Professional Experience
Food Stylist, Japan (2009-2013)
Worked as a food stylist in Japan, creating visual food presentations for magazines, advertisements, and events.
Exhibitions
Group Exhibition, "Inori, Tomoshibi, Haruka" (Project Aoe by Gallery HUG FOR__), Kamakura, Japan, 2026
Group Exhibition, "Rooting Elsewhere," True Colour Art Gallery, North Vancouver, 2025
Group Exhibition, Barter, Vancouver, Canada, 2021
Collaborations
Diptyque, Ceiling Mural, Pacific Centre, Vancouver, Canada, 2024
Mosaic Homes, Artwork displayed in the showroom for Mosaic SFU project, Vancouver, Canada, 2024
Press
Featured in: Kaizu Misato, "Jibun no Katachi no Mama, Korekara mo Watashi wa" (As I Am, I Will Continue to Be), Wave Publishing, January 27, 2026. (Japanese language publication)
Interviews
Farmboy, Feature, 2026
Kolekin, Artist Interview, 2026
Harly Jae, Artist Interview, 2025
Consider Beyond, Feature, 2023
Vancouver Guardian, Interview, 2022
Vestige Story, Artist Interview, 2022
