Profile
Mermaid nao（マーメイド ナオ）
Born in Yamagata City, Yamagata Prefecture, and raised in Kahoku and Kaminoyama. After living in Miyako Island,
and now continues to create from her home base in Yamagata.
She takes the feelings she receives through conversation and layers them with color, form, and light,
painting each piece as a single original artwork.
- LocationYamagata Prefecture (previously lived on Miyako Island)
- ActivitiesPERSONAL ORDER ART / BUSINESS ART / Solo exhibitions
- TechniqueA distinctive technique layering acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, and pen in many overlapping stages
- FamilyShe is a mother of one, and shares her home with Shiro, a white Chihuahua she took in from her grandmother, along with a goldfish, pond snails, and other small creatures.
- Off the CanvasA die-hard sweet tooth whose hobby is making saataandagi, tested over 88 times. I love basketball, swimming, and snowboarding. I have a weakness for sweets, including a soft-serve ice cream and a nut snack I think are the best in the world — feel free to ask me about them sometime. I also used to keep a tortoise named Gajiro.
When she mentioned that pond snails were "cute," her father-in-law caught five of them for her in the rice fields. He's a wonderful father-in-law.
白チワワの「しろ」
金魚・タニシと暮らす水槽
Requests and exhibition inquiries within Yamagata Prefecture are also welcome.
Story
見失っても、そこにあり続けたもの。
Origin
山形県山形市に生まれ、河北町と上山市で育ちました。宮古島での暮らしを経て、いまは地元・山形を拠点に制作を続けています。
Through an eating disorder, depression, and the experience of childbirth,
there were times when I nearly lost sight of my own light, again and again.
Even so, each time, there was something I came to realize.
In every person, always, no matter the moment,
there is a light that never fades, and a future they truly wish to live — both are always, genuinely there.
This is something I came to know for certain through painting spirit art for so many people.
Every life, every existence, is truly, overwhelmingly beautiful.
どんな方の中にも、必ずその美しさがありました。
The light of life is always beautiful, no matter what.
Turning It Into Color
That certainty has become the starting point of my work today.
When I'm in conversation with someone, there are moments when the feelings that exist before they become words, or a light the person themselves hasn't yet noticed,
there really is a moment when I can feel it, clearly, there.
I paint it as color, form, and light, leaving it behind as a single original artwork.
Why I paint by layering acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, and pen again and again, scraping and letting colors bleed —
is that feelings are something no single color or single line could ever fully express.
What Has Become Clear
What I've painted so far has mostly been that person themselves —
a person's life, their values, the feelings held within, the future they wish to live.
And spending time engaging with people in that way, this is what I came to see:
A business or a company, too, always begins with one person's wish: "This is the future I want to create."
PERSONAL ORDER ART and BUSINESS ART are two different doors,
but I believe the thinking at their core is one and the same.
What's Next
What I Want to Paint Next
A series centered on places and the people who live there — Yamagata, Miyako Island, Ishigaki Island.
A record of creating BUSINESS ART, custom order art for companies and organizations.
A document tracing the journey from conversation with a client to a finished piece.
神社や土地のエネルギーを読み取り、そこから感じたインスピレーションやイメージを絵と言葉にする、そんな連作。
I'd love to hear your ideas and requests too.
On Record
積み重ねてきた、実績。
- 2026.08HACKK TAG GALLERY, Imperial Hotel Osaka — selected for the art contest exhibition
- 2025.10Selected for the NY open-call exhibition
- 2025THE WING TOKYO 2025 — Speaking Appearance
- —Meigetsuso, a historic inn (Yamagata) — gallery exhibition
- —Exhibition at a Fukuoka art gallery
- —KANEDA Acupuncture & Massage (Kaminoyama, Yamagata) — permanent exhibition
- —Yoshida's guesthouse "Fundoshi & Naizo Seitai" on Ishigaki Island, Okinawa — permanent exhibition
- —Featured on the web media "Professional's Choice"
- —Column contribution to Credo magazine
- —Partnership and column contribution with the Wingston Japan Foundation
- —Participated in "Art Revolution" Season 1 (produced by TV writer Genichi Adachi)
