apanese artist Fumiko Toda grew up in a countryside in Japan. Feeling alienated, lonely and oppressed by Japan's rigid school system, the young Toda often escaped to a nearby pond where she would observe insects and bugs for hours. These tiny creatures eventually worked their way into her artwork, where they remain to this day. She eventually studied at the Sugii Art Institution in Mie, and graduated from Kyoto University of Art and Design in 2000. In 2001, Toda moved to New York City, where she studied painting with Sonia Gechtoff, figurative drawing with Costa Vavagiakis and printmaking with William Behnken and Kathy Carraccio at the National Academy of Fine Art through 2007. Toda moves seamlessly between the realms of painting and printmaking and has exhibited her work extensively. Her paintings and prints have an obsessive quality of intricate detail, repetition of forms and patterns, all rendered with colors so vibrant, as to appear as if they were ground from pure minerals and substances found only in nature, or in the insects themselves. She eschews sketching and reference materials, etching directly onto zinc plates, applying complex techniques, such as chine colle and a la poupee. Toda attributes her sense of design, space and line to her years in Japanese art schools, such skills and craftsmanship are emphasized. undefined

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