Bio

Urban Envy is a Hiroshima-born painter, sculptor, and artivist who grew up in Tokyo and the San Francisco Bay Area before living and working in New York City for many years. Her “tradigital” portraits fuse traditional and digital techniques, exploring themes of memento mori, identity, memory, and resilience. Working across painting, sculpture, and digital media, she creates emotionally layered works that balance the precision of Renaissance portraiture with the rebellious spirit of punk, rock, and hip-hop.

As the founder of AlterAsian—one of the first alternative Asian American web magazines—and Urban Envy Custom Art Studio, she has helped shape independent arts and cultural movements for decades. She has co-created influential initiatives including FEVA’s HOWL! Festival, New York Tributary, and Project 2020: Suzie Wong, championing creative communities at the intersection of art, activism, and cultural identity.

Now based in San Francisco, Urban Envy continues to push the boundaries between the analog and digital worlds. Her work bridges past and future, tradition and technology, using portraiture as both an intimate act of storytelling and a catalyst for social reflection and change.