KINGMAN
DONG - world famous watercolorist has seen his great artistry
in films, paintings, magazine covers, etc. in museums throughout the
world.
GALIN FUJITA - This artist makes wildly disparate psychological, experiential and syntactical spaces that both collide and reside happily under an umbrella of technical mastery at once beautiful and banal. Going from a teen career bombing (spray painting) to grad school, he is able to resource everything from graffiti, stencils, gold leafing, Ben Day dotting, half comical, half masterful appropriations of shunga (classical Japanese erotic prints), Pop, even the intricate style unique to tattoo art. Colors are just this side of gaudy--vestiges of Vegas--and the spray paint and gold leaf produce a kind of flat, reflective light that is nothing less than seductive.
FLORIA HOSHINO - She illustrate Amy Lee-Tai's book, "A Place Where Sunflowers Grow" - a tale that reveals what occurred during the Japanese Internment Camps. Hoshino said she took inspiration from the paperback book, "Peaceful Painter Hisako Hibi: Memoirs of an Issei Woman Artist" (Heyday Books, 2004, $20), a compilation of Hibi's illustrated diaries.
BYRON KIM - Kim was born in La Jolla in 1961, grew up in Connecticut
and now lives and works in Brooklyn. He attended art school in the '80s,
when interest in multicultural expression and identity politics surged.
Focusing on skin color must have come naturally, but Kim, a Korean American,
dispatched with race issues fairly quickly to take up other, more visceral
and psychological aspects of color.
DEREK KIRK KIM - Writes and Illustrates short stories in comics form. He has been serializing his stories every weekday at his website "Lowbright"
WILFREDO LAM - Cuban painter, printmaker and sculptor, Wifredo
Lam is best known for his own style of art, created by fusing Surrealism
and Cubism with the colors and form of the Caribbean.
CHIURA OBATA - In 1942 Obata Chiura and his wife Haruko were
among the more than 100,000 Japanese Americans who were moved from
their homes at the West coast into ten relocation camps. During his
internment in different camps, the artist made about hundred sketches
and paintings until his release in 1945 that can be seen in the book
Topaz Moon. During his confinement at Topaz in Utah, he organized
an art school for the 8,000 Japanese Americans in Topaz. The Topaz
Art School had over 600 students with 16 art instructors. In 1965
he received an order from the Japanese Emperor for promoting cultural
exchange between the United States and Japan.
MIAN SITU - This Chinese realist painter has painted historical scenes of the Chinese immigrants who came to California more than a century ago — the people California Gov. Leland Stanford in 1862 labeled "the dregs" of Asia's "numberless millions." In Situ's portrayals, these newcomers lay railroad tracks, peddle toys in San Francisco's old Chinatown, labor in laundries and gaze ashore from eastbound ships, approaching California for the first time.
YUQI WANG - His work hangs in public collections in China
and the collection of the Japanese Royal Family. The influence of
Rossetti and Burne-Jones is unmistakable, and in the tradition of
the Pre-Raphaelites Yuqi manages to create work which is as sensitive
as it is powerful.
TYRUS
WONG - Painter, lithographer, designer and Disney legend
HIRO YAMAGATA - Japanese-born artist/Los Angeles-based became
a commercial success in the 1980s when his whimsical sports- and nature-themed
works became top sellers for Martin Lawrence Limited Editions Inc.
In 1994 he created his "Earthly Paradise" series featuring tropical
landscapes painted on vintage Mercedes-Benz cars.
PHIL
YEH - He has painted murals
in 49 U.S. states, 3 Canadian provinces, Mexico, China, Hungary, Italy,
England, Taiwan, Germany, Singapore and Japan - in addition to 58
books. He was honored by Mrs. Bush at the White House for his literacy
work!
RUTH ASAWA - this San Francisco-based sculptor,
born in 1926, has been nationally acclaim for her works
during the past 40+
years. Asawa's work
include the Mermaid Fountain at Ghirardelli Square, Hyatt Fountain at
Union Square and the Japanese
American Internment Memorial Sculpture at the San Jose Federal Building.
Her
work can be seen at the Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American
Art and the Oakland Museum of California.
PATTY
CHANG - Chang is probably best known for her performance art
(along with video and scruptural works), which has often dealt with
issues of gender and physicality in bold, and sometimes shocking, ways.
MAYA LIN - Lin was born and raised in Athens, Ohio (1959), where her parents, both professors at Ohio University, emigrated from China just before the Communist takeover in 1949. She sees her Asian-American heritage as the source of her refusal to separate East/West influences, reason and intuition, and the left and right brain. She is of the rare few who have managed to forge a path in both art and architecture, Maya Lin is at once sculptor, architect, designer, craftsman and thinker. Since she founded her own studio in 1987,
Maya Lin's wide range of monuments, sculptures, buildings, interiors and furniture have been "proposing ways of thinking and imagining that resist categories, genres, and borders. Lin has consciously resisted divisions between architecture and design or fine and applied art. Lin's monuments, including The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial (The Mall,
Washington, DC, 1982), which won the largest design competition in American history, The Civil Rights Memorial (Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, Alabama, 1988-93), and The Women's Table (Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1993), have been highly acclaimed for creating an intensely private experience within the most public context. Their intimate human scale invites individuals of all backgrounds to touch, to feel, to respond and to contemplate.
YOSHITOMO NARA - His cartoonlike images and sculptures of kids
and puppies -- sporting world-weary adult expressions, major attitude
and salty vocabularies -- are among the most cutting edge of Japanese
exports in the contemporary art world that speak an international language
of youthful ennui, alienation, anger and bemusement that speaks to adults
who maintain a connection with their inner children. He also has a close
association with punk music and pop culture, has made him one of the
most influential artists working today.
ISAMU
NOGUCHI - world renown sculptor who often worked in clay.
ROSE YUNG
Artist is a Chinese American visual artist, sculptor and graphic
artist living and working in San Francisco, California
CHEN
ZHEN - naturalized French artist who was born in Shanghai, China.
His work was closely related to his strong interest in the relationship
between art and the health of society. Zhen was known throughout Europe
for his thought-provoking sculptural installations. Chen Zhen died in
2000.
JAMES CUI (DJ FADER) - He mixes videos for raves and parties and project them on walls. It's a
niche market and very subcultural.
SEONNA HONG - her creations balances art and animation. In 1999
Seonna made the transition into painting backgrounds for animation,
both for feature and television, and was recently recognized by her
peers with an Annie award nomination for production design.
DENNIS HWANG - Dennis Hwang is the 28-year-old webmaster behind the whimsical themed logos that appear on the site. Known as Google doodles, according to Google, the drawings have become a pop-culture phenomenon.
ELLEN POON - Starting in 1990, as a top visual effects supervisor with the illustrious George Lucas’ ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) Visual Effects team, she has worked with the highly acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou and ground-breaking films (i.e. Jurassic Park, The Mask, Disclosure, Jumanji, and Perrier's Toy Soldier spot.)
KAMISAKA SEKKA - this Rimpa Master and Pioneer of Modern Japanese
Design was a celebrated painter and decorative artist
YOSHIO TANIGUCHI - In his Competition design submission, states
that his goal is "to create an ideal environment for art and people
through the imaginative and disciplined use of light, materials and
space." He envisions "a museum that preserves and reinforces MoMA's
unique character as the repository of an incomparable collection of
modern and contemporary art, as a pioneer of museums of modern art with
a unique historical inheritance, and as an urban institution in a midtown
Manhattan location."
POP ZHAO - he has extended his visual art to what he calls
"Concept 21" multi-media theatrical performances, depicting the complexity
and beauty of the human condition, which were viewed as controversial.
FRANK
CHO - Check out some of his works
at the Washington Post.
TAK TOYOSHIMA - art director for the alternative news weekly
Boston's
Weekly Dig.. Since 1999, his weekly "Secret
Asian Man" comic strips have provided a sometimes brutal yet honest
perspective on the experience of growing up Asian American in America.
TOMOMI FUKUDA - From Japan by way of London, fashion designer Tomomi Fukuda knows all about that. Bored with selling exclusively vintage clothing after opening her Camdenlock boutique on Melrose Avenue in 1995, Fukuda began carrying what were then largely unknown British brands. Business was slow- at first. By 2001, the U.K. brands Fukuda first imported to L.A. began making inroads at her competitors and eventually at the big department stores, so she began creating her own clothes. She quickly picked up local clients along with those visiting town to record albums, including rock bands Green Day and OK Go.
MING CHO LEE - the Shanghai-born Mr. Lee has won numerous awards for his work, including: the first
Joseph Maharam Award for Electra in 1965, a Tony nomination for
Billy in 1970, the National Opera Institute Special Award for
Service to American Opera in 1980, a Tony Award, an Outer Critics
Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award, and a Maharam Award in 1983 for
his work on K2.
KAZUHIRO TSUJI - his credits as make-up/special effects person include the following: Norbit (Prosthetic Makeup), Click (Makeup Effects), The Cave (Sculptor), The Ring Two (Makeup Effects), Hellboy (Prosthetic Makeup((Spectral Motion)), The Haunted Mansion (Sculptor((Cinovation/Rick Baker Crew)), The Haunted Mansion (Concept Artist((Cinovation/Rick Baker Crew)), The Haunted Mansion (Special Makeup Effects Artist), Planet of the Apes (Art Department((special make-up effects)), Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Makeup Artist), Nutty Professor II: The Klumps - (Art Department((special effects)), Life (Art Department((make-up effects)), Life (Makeup), Mighty Joe Young (Makeup Artist), Batman & Robin, Men in Black (Art Department) and The Devil's Advocate (principal Art Department).
EMI WADA - known as Japan's first lady of costume design, Wada has worked for
more than 40 years in opera, film and theater. Her name is synonymous
with opulence and majesty, and she attracts directors who share her
taste for stylized excess: Akira Kurosawa, Zhang Yimou, Peter
Greenaway, Franco Zeffirelli, Julie Taymor.
TAK FUJIMOTO - award-winning Japanese-American
director of photography who is considered one of the most talented
camera operators in Hollywood. "Tak is a master of the proper use of blending in-camera and
visual effects techniques," states Steve Rundell of D-Rex - who
has worked with him on many projects.
MASUMI HAYASHI - photographer who used panoramic collages
to make beautiful and powerful statements on toxic waste sites, abandoned
prisons and remnants of the internment camps that held Japanese Americans
during World War II
ROSALINA TRAN LYDSTER - founder of Jewelry by Rosalina, Lydster
creates high-end jewelry, ranging from $1,500 to $70,000, exclusively
for Neiman Marcus.
MIMI SO - was the first Asian woman in the jewelry business
in the downtown jewelry corridor of Canal Street and the Bowery.
HELEN LIU FONG - Commercial architect who helped create icons
of style in the futuristic coffee shops that sprouted in Southern California
in the 1950s and '60s. She died in 2005.
