Tama Takahashi

Artist Statement

Asian Americans are often stereotyped or missing in our visual culture. Using my perspective as a mixed-race Japanese American woman, I develop vividly colored and richly textured paintings using watercolor, acrylic, gouache, printed media and/or washi paper that I hope can help change the conversation and the underrepresentation. My father's family was incarcerated during WWII in the Minidoka, Idaho. Over 120,000 other Japanese-Americans were unjustly held despite the majority of them being American citizens. My art often examines this history and my evolution as a mixed race American.

I am influenced by traditional Japanese design elements and techniques in developing my own, contemporary style and also explore nature, anime and culture through ceramics and photography.

I graduated from UC San Diego with a double major in art and cinema. I was chosen to enter the IATSE Camera Guild in Los Angeles and worked for over 15 years as a camera assistant in movies and TV for years while showing my ceramics at LA galleries. I started painting in oil and doing collages during the pandemic and opened my studio in 2023. In the same year, I was awarded an Emerging Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council and SVCREATES as well as being in my first international show curated by Julienne Johnson at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.

https://www.tamatakahashi.com/

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