Nancy Uyemura is a third-generation Japanese American artist and writer, born and raised in Los Angeles, who currently lives and works in Little Tokyo. She has been exhibiting in the United States and Asia since the 1970s, and has participated in exhibitions at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Modern Art Museum of Ito City, Japan, Riverside Art Museum, Pyong Taek City Museum, Osaka Triennial, among others. In the 1990s, she began working in public art and has a number of public art commissions in California and in Japan. From 1984 to 2017, Uyemura lived and worked at 800 Traction in downtown Los Angeles, participating in a vibrant, diverse artistic community. At the building from 1990-1999, she co-directed Gallery IV with partners Takeo Yamaki and Takeo Morita, gallerists from Japan, as well as her mentor Mike Kanemitsu. They developed a groundbreaking program bringing together Asian American art, the LA art scene of the 1990s, and contemporary Japanese art. 

Uyemura received her BA in Art and Design from UCLA and MS from USC in Education, then studied in Japan and at Otis College of Art and Design where she met and studied painting with Kanemitsu. Her background in Art and Education has led her to work both as a teacher and in design as the longtime Director of Visual Communications for Mrs. Gooch’s Natural Foods Markets in Los Angeles. In addition, she is a trained practitioner of Feng Shui. Her work across mediums, formats, and context reflects the diversity of her professional and life experiences, which allowed her to pursue her artistic practice. Uyemura has been active in community work for many years and currently works with the Little Tokyo Historical Society and Sustainable Little Tokyo Arts Action Committee.

Her work in painting, sculpture, printmaking, and book arts has long engaged with energy and transition and has evolved into a kind of healing process. Her work in Feng Shui and energy clearing adds a dimension to her artistic practice. Uyemura shifts from public to private in her artwork, from creating large works that become part of the public environment, viewed by many, to very private, intimate pieces seen by only a few.  Her artwork deals with change and energy, the sensual quality of light and the medium, the dynamic effects of the environment and our interactions.