Japanese and American
b. 1951, Tokyo, Japan
Lives and works in New York, New York

Shirley Kaneda is a Japanese-American artist who was born in Tokyo to Korean-born parents where Korean, Japanese, and English were spoken in her childhood home. Earning her BFA at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, she has continued to live and work in New York.

Shirley Kaneda is an abstract painter. Her large oil paintings on canvas have been described as neon-hued, wavy and biomorphic. In discussing her own work, Kaneda once explained, "I think of myself as continuing the process of demystifying the ideation of values, such as the heroic, the aggressive, the optical, and the rational, that used to be associated with the masculine… I use my work to metaphorically promote such non-heroic themes as the decorative, beauty, fluidity, diversity, and so on.” Her works on handmade paper have a lushness about them.

A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Award, Shirley Kaneda exhibits in galleries across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Kaneda has also been a contributing editor to BOMB magazine.