Chieko Murasugi is an abstract painter, textile, and mixed-media artist based in North Carolina. Born in Tokyo and raised in Toronto, she lived in San Francisco for two decades before relocating to the Southeast in 2012. As a child of WWII bombing survivors, her work examines how history, perception and chance interact to shape identity.
Murasugi holds a PhD in Visual Perception (Experimental Psychology) from York University (Toronto) and an MFA in Studio Art from UNC Chapel Hill. Her interdisciplinary practice bridges scientific inquiry and material exploration, often employing digitally assisted randomization alongside material processes to balance intention and unpredictability.
Her work has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums including the Mint Museum, Weatherspoon Art Museum, CAM Raleigh, and Spartanburg Art Museum and is held in public and corporate collections, including Duke University, and the Cities of Raleigh and Durham. Murasugi has received artist residencies at Hambidge and Wildacres and was a recipient of the Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artists Grant from the Durham Arts Council. From 2019 to 2025 she co-founded and co-curated BASEMENT, an artist collective supporting experimental artists across the Southeast.
I am an interdisciplinary abstract artist whose practice investigates how chance, history, and contemporary conditions shape meaning and perception. Central to my work is the tension between intention and unpredictability. Using digitally assisted randomization in combination with material and intuitive processes I create paintings, mixed media, digital, and textile works that balance control with chance. Randomization operates as both a conceptual and formal tool, allowing unexpected compositions to emerge alongside deliberate choice.
My work is informed by familial and cultural memory, including samurai culture and the generational trauma resulting from World War II deprivations in Japan and the Japanese diaspora. These histories enter the work through symbolic strategies and materially charged references, such as cheesecloth—historically used to wrap napalm in bombs dropped on Tokyo civilians during WWII. I also incorporate visual illusions and references to contemporary events to address instability, fragmentation, and the limits of perception.
By bringing together chance, historical memory, and perceptual ambiguity, my work reflects the complex and layered systems— material, historical, and cultural—through which meaning is produced and understood.