One thing I really love about living in a bigger city like Nagoya is the opportunity to see many art exhibitions at museums. On a whim, my friend and I went to Nagoya City Art Museum for an artist we had never heard of before, Miran Fukuda.

Ms. Fukuda's art focused on seeing things from a different perspective or taking classic artworks and reinventing them for the modern age. For example, she made a Disney character clothing version of this 17th Century Japanese painting.

She also painted Diego Valezquez's Las Meninas from the perspective of Princess Margarita's maid.

 

     

She imagined the Mona Lisa taking a break from having Leonardo da Vinci paint her portrait.

I found her ideas very fresh and her paintings clever. She takes famous works of art and reminds us that we don't need to be so careful about them. Instead, we should play with the ideas of artists from long ago. It reminded me of how many students have told me that they became acquainted with famous works of Renaissance art, not from visiting a museum, but from going to eat at Saizeriya!