A Different Kind of Asian Female Image

by Latoya Peterson

Yuko Shimizu is a bad motherfucker.

I wish I was articulate enough to express what I feel when I look ar her art, but the phrase above was all I could manage to do.

“Everyone who is honest is interesting” are the words on her landing page and visual honesty is what informs each and every image she renders in a multitude of mediums.

For instance, take the example of Panda Girl:

Whoa. Billed as the first Asian-American superheroine (sorry Jubilee, looks like you were disqualifed due to excessive coloring errors!) Panda Girl looks like she can bring a serious can of whoop-ass to the superhero party. I wish someone would try to stuff her in a refrigerator!

Shimizu covers a lot of ground, and her online portfolio displays illustrations on sports subjects to business to portraits of music icons to children’s book themes.

Yuko Shimizu also has the amazing ability to realistically render people of color in all their forms. She nails varying tones and characteristics in children in this piece for the New York Times:

And she manages to realistically portray the complexity and difference in human hair texture, build, and complexion for her illustration featured in the New Yorker:

While I am having great fun exploring her work, I do have a confession to make. It’s been a few days and I’m still trying to figure out what this image is saying about sex:

Umm…any ideas?

[All images are property of Yuko Shimizu, unless otherwise indicated on her site.]

[via Tokyomango]