Born:  Seattle, Washington, 1939

Current Residence:  Lawrence, Kansas

Roger Shimomura's paintings, prints and theatre pieces address socio-political issues of Asian America and have often been imspired by 56 years of diaries kept by his late immigrant grandmother.

"I have relied heavily upon family oral history as well as on the published and unpublished stories written by my late grandmother...I have also referred to old family photographs, and most important, Mrs. Shimomura's personal diaries, maintained by her for 56 years.  This vast collection of materials has been integrated into my personal accumulation of videos, films, slides, writings, audio tapes, and other materials related to cross-cultural matters."

- Roger Shimomura, October 1993 -

He received his B.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle and his M.F.A. from Syracuse University, New York.  He has had over 100 solo-exhibitions of his paintings and prints, as well as presented his experimental theater pieces at major venues across the country.  He is the recipeint of over 30 grants, including 4 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Painting and Performance Art.  Shimomura has been a visiting artist and lectured on his work at over 200 universities and art museums across the country.  In 1999, the Seattle Urban League designated a scholarship under his name that since has been awarded annulally to a Seattle resident that is pursuing a career in art.  In 2002 the College Art Association presented him with the "Artist Award for Most Distinguished Body of Work", for his 4 year, 12 musuem national tour of the painting exhibition, "An American Diary".  The following year he delivered the Alummus Award for the University of Washington, the hightest honor that school bestows upon their graduates.

In the fall of 1990, he was appointed the Dayton Hudson Distinguished Visiting Proffessor at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota.  At the Univerisity of Kansas where he taught since 1969 he was designated a University Distinguished Provessor in 1994, the first so honored in the history of the School of Fine Arts on that campus.  In 1998, he was the recipient of the Higuchi Research Award, the hightest annual honor awared a faculty member in the Humanities and Social Teaching Award for sustainied excellence in teaching and dedication to students at the University of Kansas.  In 2004 he retired from teaching and started the Shimomura Faculty Research Support Fund, and endowment to support faculty research in the Department of Art.

Shimomura's personal papers are being colledted by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

 

Artist Statement for Kabuki Rehearsal and Kabuki Rehearsal #2

"On occassi on Kabuki plays were produced internally at some of the camps.  I was taken by some pho togr aphs I saw where the beauty of the costuming and makeup was poignantly juxtaposed with the barren w alls of the barracks."

- Roger Shimomura -

Statement for Super Buddahead and American Buddahead

(Two new lithographs from the "American Knockoff" series of imagery)

Roger Shimomura is a 3rd generation American citizen of Japanese descent, who was born in Seattle, Washington.

In recent years much of his work has reflected, with humor, the common, subtle references that some people make to connect him to stereotypical "oriental" traits.

"Many American born citizens of Asian descent continue to be thought of as only 'American Knockoffs.' '

" 'American Buddahead' is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek confirmation of what I must look like to the majority culture.

'Super Buddahead ' asks whether Superman must be Caucasian to be complete.

The term buddahead was a WWII term used by the Japanese American soldiers among themselves."

- Roger Shimomura -

 

 

Artist's Statement for American Guardian

"The inspiration for this lithograph comes from 17th C, (Muromachi period) byobu painting.  The image itself dipicts a Japanese American internment camp from the vantage point of one of the guard towers that surrounded the camp.  The sentry closely observes a child riding the tricycle making reference to the artist, who at the time of his incarceration was 4 years old."

- Roger Shimomura -

Statement for Kabuki Play

'Kabuki' is a form of Japanese dance-drama dating from the 17th century, based on popular themes, with male and female roles performed by men only, chiefly in fomalized pantominme, dance and song.

Kabuki Play combines the influence of the Japanese woodblock with icons of American pop culture.  Walt Disney's Donald Duck - a familiar image from his own youth that seemed to celebrate an idealized American life - appears to be handing the American woman a little pearl while the Japanese kimono-clad woman watches; a Japanese sword prepares to cut a cord held above his head by a more-than-likely famous Japanese Kabuki male 'player' probably 'borrowed' from a painting by another artist; and in the bacground we see an image of a bomber with the well-known cultural insignia, a red sun, signifying Japan as the Land of the Rising Sun, painted on it.

Artist's Statement for Kansas Samurai

"The move to Kansas 35 years ago underscored my ethnic and cultural difference from the local populace and soon inspired a new direction in my artwork.  The images in Kansas Sanurai are meant to metaphorically represent that sense of rejection that can be experienced by those who are not members of the majority culture."

- Roger Shimomura -

Kansas Samurai was started in 2002 and finished in 2004, the year Shimomura retired from teaching at the University of Kansas.  Incorporated in the background is the actual grain pattern of a woodblock, referencing the look of a Japanese woodcut.  The line drawn figures from classical American cartoon culture all have their backs turned to the central samurai figure.  The image is a reflection on the changes that evolved in Roger's work after moving from Seattle to the Midwest in 1970.

Artist's Statement for Memories of Childhood

""Because I was so young at the time, the memories I have are very few, buth those that I have maintained are still quite vivid.  This series of work represents nearly all of those memories, that is , all of them except for one.  As wonderful as it had seemed to live close to most of my friends and relatives, I remember never fully understanding exactly why we moved, and wondering if we were ever going to go back home."

- Roger Shimomura -

Artist Statement for Minidoka Snapshots

"Minidoka Snapshots is a suite of miniprints that attempts to capture some essential visual features of the interior camp environment.  Tar paper barracks, barren landscapes, barbed wire and guard towers are the principal components that make up the immutable view."

 

-  Roger Shimomura -

 

 

 

Statement for Mistaken Identities

Each of the six lithographs in the suite, Mistaken Identities, was inspired by a notable photograph or painting that was executed during the illegal internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during WW II. In order they are:  Girl wtih ID tag, photography by Dorothea Lange; Mother with child, photograph by the Seattle Post Intelligencer; Writing Woman, painting by Tokio Ueyama: Buildings, painting by Masao Mori; Head, photography by Ansel Adams; and Children Playing, painting belonging to the Hatate Family.

In this series, all of the figures are depicted as traditional Japanese, replete in kimono, geta, and typical headdress.  The images refer to Amaerica's inability, durring WW II, to differentiate between the Japanaese enemy.  This failure was initially perpertrated by the 1942 proclamation, by General DeWitt, Commander of the Western Defense, that "a Jap is a Jap."  This misconception continues today as Asian appearing people continu to be presumed, by many, to be foreigners to this country.

Artist's Statement for Yellow No Same

""To most non-Asians in this country, the differences between the Japanese, Chinese and other Asian people are either indistinguishable or immaterial.  During WW II this insensitivity was expressed by their failure to recognize the differences between the Japanese people and Americans of Japanese descent.  Today, history is being forced to admit the gravity of this error in judgment..."

"This series of prints explores America's inability to distinguish between Japanese and Japanese American people.  This is what brought about the internment camps for World War II.  In the twelve images, different Japanese American people stand behind the barbed wire of the internment camps, while traditional Japanese figures such as costumed actors stand in front of the wire barrier."

- Roger Shimomura -

The Yellow No Same series deals with the artist's observations of a double-sided prejudice in American society in which all Asians are lumped into one, ethnically interchangeable group, while all Asian Americans are viewed as dissimilar from other Americans.  Each of the images in this series contrast a male figure taken from Japanese woodblock prints with images of Japanese-Americans in the Minidoka camp where Shimomura and his family were interned from 1942-1944.  Separating the figures from each of these worlds are discrete lines of barbed wire silhouetted in black.