BIOGRAPHY

Embroidery originated as something made for those close to us. It was used to reinforce clothing, adorn it, and ward off evil.
Drawing on this tradition, Cagiu creates works in the hope that they will one day reach someone she has not yet met.
What she inherits is not only technique, but also the ethos of making something for another person. She brings this act of making into contemporary art.

Cagiu’s work begins with small things found in nature. Rather than motifs, they contain the passage of time and draw her attention through their quiet, unadorned existence.
For Cagiu, creating is an attempt to approach the enduring presence of things.

Cagiu studied sculpture at university, where she explored various forms of expression, including painting and installation. During a journey to Turkey, she encountered Ottoman-era embroidery and was deeply moved by the power contained in the traces of human hands and time. She purchased materials at a local craft shop and embroidered her backpack. The process she developed at that time, creating forms without drawing directly onto the fabric, through trial and error, and discovering forms through the movement of the thread, has continued throughout her practice.

Later, during a visit to Nara for the study of Buddhist sculpture, she encountered embroidered Buddhist images made with prayer and devotion. This encounter revealed to her the possibility of embroidery beyond its decorative and craft-based associations, leading her to explore embroidery as a form of artistic expression.

After graduating from university, Cagiu worked at a design studio and a newspaper company before returning to her artistic practice after giving birth. She studied embroidery techniques from around the world and later studied Japanese embroidery under Yoshiko Mihara. For Cagiu, needle and thread became tools and materials that she could use as freely as words, much like a sculptor’s chisel and wood.

Since her first solo exhibition, ‘Over the sea, in the sky,’ in 2011, Cagiu has continuously presented her work. In 2020, she participated in ‘Takamatsu Contemporary Art Annual vol. 09,’ organized by the Takamatsu Art Museum.
She subsequently participated in touring exhibitions throughout Japan, including ‘Stories Drawn in Thread’ (2021–2023) and ‘In the Genes, Taking Marvelous Meiji Craftsmanship into the Future’(2023–2024).

Rooted in the techniques of Japanese embroidery, Cagiu explores new possibilities within contemporary art by creating expressions of light and time through the accumulation of silk threads.