Yukari Sakura

Yukari Sakura (b. 1989) works with great focus on what she calls her “very own stories,” gathering inspiration from mythological tales, animated films, and video games.  Sakura works primarily with watercolor, colored pencils, and paint, rendering graphic illustrations of these characters with vibrantly colored accessories and surrounded by text. Once an artwork is completed, she places it in a chronological bound folder. Sakura has also begun working on animations based on animals and their environments, writing out what she calls “documents” and then basing subsequent drawings off her research.

She provided the following artist statement:
“I have been drawing since I was 3 years old. I draw things that I like. I really like all animals. I like foxes, cats, dogs, birds, turtles, and most of all horses. I make stories with the things I draw. My earliest stories were about dinosaurs right after seeing many dinosaur movies. Years later I created more and more stories that I based on movies I had seen. My interest in animals has also led me to make animations based on documents I wrote. For example, my favorite animal, the horse has a tail that is like a very long brush and then there is the unicorn—who looks like a horse with a horn, has a long mane and a tail that looks like a rag doll’s hair, turtles and snails carry their houses on their backs. Birds have tails that could look like a fan like a peacock and butterflies their wings are like beautiful “flower” petals. These are some of things I like to draw in my art.”