Yuka Numata

Yuka Numata (b. 1992) is a Japanese contemporary artist whose practice explores the transition from analog to digital culture and the ways contemporary experiences are recorded, perceived, and remembered.
Born into the emergence of the digital-native generation, Numata grew up witnessing a period of rapid technological transformation, when everyday life shifted from physical media and direct experiences to screen-based communication and digital archives. Her work reflects on this cultural transition, examining how images, memories, and information are continuously reconstructed through evolving technologies.
Working primarily with plastic beads, she creates pixel-based works that exist between painting and sculpture. Through a meticulous and labor-intensive process, she translates digital visual language into physical objects, transforming familiar motifs, logos, personal memories, and fragments of daily life into tangible archives. Glitches, distortions, and misalignments frequently appear in her work, disrupting recognizable imagery and revealing the instability of meaning within contemporary image culture.
By materializing digital aesthetics through handmade processes, Numata's practice highlights the tension between virtual experiences and physical reality, while questioning how a generation shaped by technological change understands and preserves its own time.