Mayuko Fujino — Japanese Paper Cut Illustrator & Surface Pattern

Using the hand-cut paper skill she has practiced for over two decades, Mayuko Fujino creates stencil illustrations, collage art, and surface pattern designs. Mayuko’s organic shapes, simple compositions, and use of calming colors are influenced by the artists from the Mingei Japanese folk art movement such as Keisuke Serizawa, and graphic designers from the early 20th century who fused traditional Japanese aesthetics and Western art influences such as Hisui Sugiura.

Mayuko started making art as a teenager, influenced by the Japanese Mingei folk art movement, which emphasizes the aesthetic grounded in everyday life that contributes to people's well-being. She sees commercial illustration as a potential way to explore this concept and make art more accessible. She is a birder and often finds inspiration in the natural landscapes and country life in the Hudson Valley, New York, where she lives. She would love to connect with nature lovers and support environmental conservation works through her work.

Approach

According to Mingei theory, beauty resides in works created selflessly, with simple compositions that eliminate overthinking and reveal natural, unconstrained characteristics. She aims to achieve that aesthetic in her work as well. Her illustrations are handcrafted using stencils. She scans the stencil paintings, composes them in Photoshop, and finalizes them, or vectorizing them when necessary for more flexible applications. This process allows her to maintain a handcrafted aesthetic while enjoying the flexibility of digital illustration.

Key Software

Photoshop

Style

The style imputed to her images very much comes down to the shapes and colors she uses. Nature – including plants, flowers, and birds – often comes to the fore, and with their organic curves, her images have a decorative feel. She pays close attention to her use of white space, which is the exercise of Ma 間, the Japanese concept of shaping a design with pauses and intervals, and she perfectly hones color and contrast to control the overall atmosphere of the piece.

Client list

Some of Mayuko’s clients include Williams-Sonoma, the Nature Conservancy, New York City’s Department of Transportation, NYC Parks, The Resurgence Trust, Cricket Magazine, Atlantic Magazine, and the National Audubon Society.