Social issues of artwork
#portray #portraits #Tim Okamura
“Full bloom.” All photographs © Tim Okamura, distributed with permission
“This can be a time when a girl's proper to decide on and have a voice in decision-making at each degree has already been compromised with threats of even larger subjugation,” says artist Tim Okamura, whose hanging portraits (beforehand) emphasizes the profound energy and resilience of ladies.
Usually wanting straight on the viewer, Okamura's topics confront historical past whereas standing squarely within the current and searching towards the longer term. In his course Girls Warriors within the sequence, people put on beautiful conventional clothes and wield swords, followers, or scythes. His private exhibition Onna-Bugeisha: Warriors of Gentle on the August Wilson African American Cultural Middle celebrates those that combat for social justice and a greater society.
Okamura grew to become fascinated by its historical past onna-bugeisha, also called si onna-musha, when he discovered the story of Tomoe Gozen, a legendary feminine samurai from Japan's late Heian interval (AD 794-1185). She is known for main 300 feminine samurai into battle in opposition to an enemy military of two,000 males and being certainly one of 5 survivors.
“Emissaries of the North”
“I feel the truth that the samurai girl fought alongside males and had the identical tasks and expectations resonated deeply with me,” says Okamura, “particularly as a result of as an individual of Japanese descent I used to be conscious of a male-dominated historical past, typically misogynistic. society, which I’ve all the time discovered troublesome to reconcile as somebody who identifies as a feminist.”
Lots of Okamura's portraits depict influential modern ladies, such because the Nigerian-American author and speaker Luvvie Ajayi Jones. A bunch of different topics, usually carrying flowers of their hair, faucet right into a common sense of uplifting others and combating for illustration, equality and empowerment. “I feel the function of the artist is to open paths to various, constructive paths and set up new visions by means of elevated narratives,” he provides.
Okamura's work is featured in a solo exhibition titled Assist system at Blumka Modern in New York and Onna-Bugeisha: Warriors of Gentle continues by means of February 18, 2025, in Pittsburgh. Discover extra on the artist's web site and Instagram.
“Luvvie Ajayi”
“The Unbreakable Ebony Obsidian”
“Yaya the Demon Slayer”
“KNOW YOUR RIGHTS”
“Hearth Walks With Me”
“Encouraging Phrases (Omoiyari)”
#portray #portraits #Tim Okamura
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