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ROGER SHIMOMURA |
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For almost 40 years, I have devoted my career toward addressing issues of my ethnic identity as a third generation (Sansei) Japanese American. The span of that work includes ventures into painting, printmaking, video, installation, mixed media, and experimental theatre, however, I have always considered myself to be a painter, and it is to that discipline that I have always returned. Most of my artistic career has been fueled by an ever growing awareness of the unique contributions that the Japanese Americans has made to the social and historic fabric of this country. At the core of that awareness has been my artistic interaction with my immigrant grandmother's diaries, which she began in l912. These intital notes that she recorded, related to the emotions she felt saying goodbye to her Tokyo friends as she prepared herself for the boat ride to America along with 60 other picture-brides (shashin kekkon), all anticipating their respective future lives in this country. For 56 years, she was to maintain these diaries, relating her experiences as a midwife to over 1,000 babies in the Pacific Northwest (her last delivery being myself) and perhaps, most poignant, her daily thoughts during the incarceration of our entire family, during World War II, in a remote desert concentration camp in Southern Idaho. The material that I have gathered over the years, beyond these diaries, has been voluminous and has inspired works related to almost every aspect of the Asian American experience. From my early-life collection of comic books, to my mid-life colection of antique comic character toys and books, my work has always been heavily influenced by the aesthetics of the things that have surrounded me. Most recently, thanks to the advent of Ebay, I have found unlimited resources for my current fascination with WWII racist images.
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