froggiesvillage
Sophia Chizuco

Froggiesvillage is a fantasy village of mischievous, whimsical, and emotional froggies and creatures. In this show, the artist Chizuco creates a fantasy nature environment; with ceramic froggies, anthropomorphic frog paintings, cut-out shapes of trees, leaves and a river, she has built a site-specific installation of froggies’ village where viewers can walk through and look through to find froggies.

Frog is a good luck charm in Japan. Because frogs are considered a symbol of prosperity, it is believed that wealth and fortune return (kaeru) wherever there is a frog (kaeru). *Frog is “Kaeru (カエル)” and also “Kaeru（帰る),” meaning “to return” in Japanese. Froggies in Froggiesvillage are standing, sitting, fishing, hiding, and pretending to be someone else.

Growing up in Japan surrounded by mountains, green tea fields, rice fields and rivers, the artist Chizuco has also been fond of green frogs. To Chizuco, frog is also a symbol of fertility, transformation, and mystery. By drawing frogs, she remembers their loud songs during summer nights, which now have disappeared due to gentrification. Chizuco hopes froggies in Froggiesvillage brings smile to people’s faces.

About the Artist

Originally from Japan, Sophia Chizuco is a multidisciplinary artist and a founder of “froggiesvillage” now based in Brooklyn, New York. Chizuco has been selected as a leader for “Hospital-Based Community Murals Project“at NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arts in Medicine program. She was also selected for projectart, art and social practice in Cypress Hills library and SU-CASA, artist-in-residence in Young Israel Senior Center. She held origami workshops at Museum of Jewish Heritage and National Yiddish Theatre. For her latest collaboration with not-for-profit Norte Maar, she created ballet dancer’s costumes and stage art installations for a theater. Chizuco had been a mentor at the Immigrant Artist Program, the New York Foundation for the Arts. Currently, She holds family workshops with NARS Foundation. She received the grand prize from ArtNetwork and a merit scholarship from the Art Students League of NY. The artist has exhibited nationally and internationally at the Staten Island Museum, New York Hall of Science, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (Japan), Makati Shangri-La Hotel (Philippines).

She earned her B.A. in Art and Education from Tokyo Gakugei University. In 2000, she moved to NY to study abstract paintings at the Art Students League of NY and earned a certificate in painting for her studies.

For more information about Sophia visit this link.