Asuka Anastacia Ogawa, “Feijão”

Uncanny and somewhat disturbing, the child-like figures in Asuka Anastacia Ogawa’s paintings stare impassively at the viewer with oversized eyes that aren’t so much windows to the soul as they are portals to an otherworldly dimension of story-telling. You might conclude that this means African folklore of some sort given that Ogawa renders her subjects’ rounded faces and baby-ish bodies in deep shades of black applied with a flat unaffected hand. Indeed, Ogawa, who is Japanese-Brazilian, says her paintings are partly based on tales handed down to her by her mother and grandmother, though just what those may entail is hard to decipher, since Ogawa’s work seems to be more about feeling than narrative.