Kumiko’s first sculpture was found broken in New York City in 2002. The experience left a deep emotional imprint—one that would quietly shape her artistic journey for decades. Twenty years later, in Singapore, she returned to that moment by repairing the sculpture using a simplified Kintsugi technique. This act marked a turning point, leading her to engage deeply with the philosophy of Kintsugi—the Japanese art of restoring broken objects with gold and urushi lacquer, where fractures are not concealed but rather illuminated. Rather than erasing damage, Kintsugi transforms it into a visible and integral part of the object’s history. The crack becomes a site of beauty, resilience, and meaning. It suggests that what has been broken is not diminished, but redefined. This philosophy resonates with broader natural and psychological processes. In nature, rupture often signals transition—the cracking of ice as winter yields to spring. In C.G.Jungian thought, psychological fractures—trauma, shadow, and breakdown—are not failures, but necessary thresholds through which transformation and deeper consciousness emerge. Through confronting and integrating these fractures, individuals move toward greater authenticity and resilience. Kumiko’s painting series, Kintsugi Resilience, extends these ideas into a visual language. Through layered surfaces and painterly gestures, each work engages with the tension between fragility and strength, absence and restoration,rupture and continuity. The compositions bear traces of interruption and repair, — suggesting that identity itself is formed through cycles of loss and reconstruction. At its core, the series reflects the principle of creative destruction: the understanding that destruction is not an end, but a generative force. Through processes of breaking and reconfiguring, new forms, meanings, and possibilities emerge. In this way, each work becomes not only an object, but a record of transformation—a meditation on how beauty can arise from fracture, and how resilience is shaped through the act of repair.

Artwork Size & Ink Base:

61 x 91cm Acrylic Paint

Please add your full name below if you would also like to make this listing searchable by name:

Kumiko Matsushima

Please add your IG Username if you would like Plogix to share this listing on social media:

kumiko_matsushima__hk