2008.0813 Inherent Meaning / Coming to America

Inherent Meaning / Coming to America

date created: 2008.0813
medium: Mixed Media
size: 6x6 in / 15.2x15.2 cm

I had physically completed this piece over a year ago, but it wan't "finished" until I deemed it so tonight on August 13, 2008. Sometimes it takes a long time for a piece of art to "cure." The process is actually a bit of a mystery, but one of the things that needs to happen for me is an extraction of meaning from the work. I understand this painting tonight, and so it is ready to be unveiled to the public online for the first time. When I was four years old, my parents moved with me and my younger brother from Japan to the United States. The sense of crossing the ocean from one land to another is a theme that seems to come out often in my work. I wasn't conscious of the reflection of the story of my immigration as I created the piece; rather, I was drawn to the pattern of waves which I found inside a plain envelope and is very Japanese. Interestingly, I chose to depict five diagonally drawn stripes, and there are four of us in my family who came over from Japan plus one more who was born in the US. Collage, acryla gouache and metallic gouache on acid-free, archival, 6x6 in. flat hardboard panel.