Emi Kusano

Kusano’s AI-infused art has been featured on the cover of WWD Japan and in prestigious auctions at Christie’s and Gucci. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Saatchi Gallery and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, and is collected in over a dozen countries.

Raised by artist parents, Kusano's creative inclinations were nurtured from an early age. But despite wanting to be an artist full-time, she initially doubted she could make a living from her creativity and this steered her away from art school and towards studying business and design. However, she always found joy in creating things and kept on doing this in different ways. In high school she took on street photography, which allowed her to capture the essence of Tokyo's dynamic fashion culture. Besides this, Kusano performed in a band called Satellite Young, where she dressed as an 80s idol and sang about modern tech. This period marked the beginning of Kusano's fascination with retro-futuristic worlds, a theme that continues to drive her work nowadays.

In 2021, with her awareness of blockchain technology, and with her son's pixel art going viral, she was newly inspired. She started a serious art practice, exploring the transient nature of memories through retro-futurism, inspired by the nostalgic allure of vintage science fiction and the pop culture of the 60s to 90s. Utilizing AI and various mediums, she creates visual narratives that delve into the interplay between memory and modernity.

Her work is also an ode to the ever-evolving relationship between humanity and technology, inspired by the Japanese Animistic belief. This exploration is a quest to understand how collective nostalgia influences our expectations and acceptance of technology, shaping the future through a reflection on the past.