Akane Tsuruda is a digital collage artist who lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. She has no artistic background and works at regular company as an office administrative. In Autumn 2021, she was having a hard time interacting after being devastated by someone close, and accidentally came across “digital collage art”. Since then, she has been obsessed with creating and posting them on her Instagram page. Her artworks come from inspirations - such as people, objects, nature, music or words encountered or overheard in daily life. Akane creates artworks using pictures she took or found on the internet and arranges these inspirations into collages using editing software. She explains “I used to suppress my emotions - I cared too much about what others think of me and whether or not I was appreciated, and this caused a deep anxiety. What’s good about collage creation is that enable me to formulate what visions or imaginations comes to my mind in a free format. There’s no rules. I am highly intrigued by the access such work gives oneself to a more free world, expressed through collages.”
She emphasizes "Express myself freely". Her artworks express her present feelings as they arise from inside. Those feelings which are not only something like joy or cheerful feelings, but also dark or negative feelings such as sadness, jealousy, feeling of despair, suffering, hate and anger. She continues creating artworks which allow others to empathize and resonate with the messages contained in each collage. And she has come to realize that her creation of such art mediates her own self expression rather than aligning her creations to other people’s expectations or assumptions. Her way of thinking about life is to choose and accept the result as it is, on her own. Her way of life is expressed through her artworks. She hopes that your experience of her story and her art will encompassed you in feelings of healing, abundance, and any messages that reside in her artworks.