Start Here: Kiyooka, Nakamura, Takashima, Tanabe is a new exhibit up now at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Guest curator Bryce Kanbara says that the exhibit serves as a tribute to the pioneering work done by nisei artistes Roy Kiyooka, Kazuo Nakamura, Shizuye Takashima, and Takao Tanabe.
“This exhibit is another example of what can happen when I get involved in the arts community and the Japanese community, which are separate but in parallel and sometimes they cross over,” says Kanbara. “In this case, it’s an exhibit of, they’re called nisei, second-generation Japanese-Canadian artists, who I consider to be pioneering artists in our community, and it’s an introduction to their work because the room can only hold so much work, so it’s like a glimpse into what those four artists have accomplished. I want to make sure that succeeding generations of not only Japanese-Canadian artists but other artists and the general public are aware of them… It’s an introduction but also a reminder that these artists are worthy of remembering and affecting.”
Kanbara says that what stands out the most about the exhibit is that the art is all very different, which is a testament to it being made by very different artists.
“They’re very individual and different, and I think during their lives… they developed their careers without really knowing one another, and so they didn’t influence one another and their work was very different from each other,” says Kanbara. “So, there isn’t really a theme, other than the fact that they’re very different and reflect the experience of Japanese-Canadians in this country. A lot of them grew up very influenced by the mainstream, and each of them have succeeded in their own way.”
Kanbara says that art is a way for Japanese artists to explore their own identity and heritage.
“They’re all artists and they’re all very inquisitive, so I’m sure all of them investigated the side of their Japanese heritage. Someone like Takao Tanabe, who is from the Island—around Parksville somewhere—he went to Japan to explore his Japanese identity and he came back pretty certain he was not Japanese. He was a westerner. None of those people could really speak Japanese, for example. They were not fluent at all in Japanese… They could speak it to a certain extent but their connection with Japan is curious, because, like I said, each of them probably explored it to some extent but it didn’t play a major part in the art they produced here.”
Kanbara says that his main hopes for this exhibit is to give its audience inspiration to further explore Japanese art and to give a boost of pride to the Japanese-Canadians attending.
“Well, I hope they take away, if they don’t know the artists before they come, I hope it inspires them or motivates them to look deeper into what their lives and practices have been, because they did a lifetime of work,” he says. “For Japanese-Canadians in the community, I would hope it instills or renews a sense of pride in the work that Japanese-Canadian artists have produced. And also an appreciation that these artists, on behalf of the community, expressed feelings and experiences in their own ways.”
Start Here: Kiyooka, Nakamura, Takashima, Tanabe
Until Sunday, January 22
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
aggv.ca