About
Bio
Chie Ushio was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, where her passion for art began at an early age. She majored in Oil Painting at Tokyo Metropolitan Music and Art High School and later studied film at Nihon University College of Art.
Driven by a lifelong dream of living in the U.S., she moved to New York to study Graphic Design at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in Manhattan. After graduating, she worked for over a decade as a book designer at Penguin Random House, shaping visual narratives through design.
Her artistic journey came full circle when she painted a mural in her home, reigniting her passion for painting. Today, she is fully dedicated to her practice, using painting as a medium to express her unique perspective and inner world.
Contact
Phone: 1-646-244-0692
Email: chieushio@gmail.com
Artist Statement
​​
I’m Chie Ushio, a Japanese-born painter living just outside New York City in Leonia, New Jersey. My work is where the personal crashes into the political—painted stories that wrestle with identity, grief, injustice, and the quiet rage of being human inside a broken system.
I was trained in oil painting in Tokyo, studied film and design, and spent years in New York working as a book designer at Penguin Random House. But painting kept calling me back. In 2024, I finally answered. Now I paint because I need to. It’s how I process the daily violence of headlines, the weight of memory, and the beauty that somehow still survives all of it.
​
My paintings are emotional, confrontational, and symbolic—portraits that reflect lived experience and unspoken truths. I’ve painted the cost of U.S. healthcare, the collective grief of Gaza, the silence forced on immigrants, and the resilience of women rebuilding their lives. I don’t paint to be polite. I paint to feel, to fight, and to spark something in the viewer—reflection, discomfort, connection. Maybe even anger.
​
I’m not interested in art that plays it safe. I want you to look twice. I want the image to stay with you after you walk away.
​
This is how I fight.