Visual Arts

Jenn Kitagawa

Jenn Kitagawa is an award-winning multidisciplinary visual artist who grew up in the city of Edmonton as well as the southern farmlands surrounding Taber, Alberta. She is of Japanese descent and is 4th generation, or Yonsei and Scottish. Graduating from MacEwan University (Edmonton, Alberta) and the Alberta College of Art & Design (Calgary, Alberta), she […]

Taka Sudo

Born and raised in Tokyo, now residing in Vancouver Canada. Taking influences from those totally different environment to create the unique style of artworks.

Mia Hope

Mia Hope (b. 2001) is an emerging interdisciplinary artist, photographer, writer and performer based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. As a biracial Japanese-Canadian, she takes on a cross-cultural and feminist framework in her studies and craft. She is interested in cultural liberation, inclusivity and diversity for […]

Tomo Ingalls

Tomo Ingalls is a woman, mother, potter, clay artist, and immigrant. She started pottery training in 2014 and obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Craft Media from Alberta University of the Arts in 2022. She has provided her wares to galleries and stores in maritime provinces. Currently, she is an artist in residence at […]

Meg Ohsada

Meg Ohsada is a multidisciplinary artist from Canmore Alberta, who pours passion and feelings into her art to stir up inspiration in all who see it. Meg is passionate in advocating for an inclusive culture and helping others see that the world can be a better place when we share love, beauty, encouragement and kindness […]

Alexa Hatanaka

Alexa Hatanaka engages in time-intensive, historic processes connected to her Japanese heritage that support her thinking around community-building, environment, and honouring evolving cultural practices such as relief-printmaking, papermaking and kamiko, the practice of sewing garments out of konnyaku starch-strengthened washi (Japanese paper). Her seminal work “Hazmat Suit (unborn/ reborn tsunami)” was acquired by the National […]

Yukari Oyama Peerless

Yukari is a multi-talented creative based in Victoria, BC, with a passion for bridging the gap between Japanese and Canadian cultures. She is a writer, interpreter, podcaster, watercolor artist, and Japanese Cultural Consultant, and has been helping to connect the two cultures since moving from Nagasaki, Japan to Victoria in 1998. As the owner of […]

PJ Patten

PJ Patten is a self-taught graphic illustrator, tattoo artist, and poet whose work is influenced by the intersection of his Japanese heritage with his American military upbringing. Patten’s parents met in Japan where his father was stationed, and the family was raised in Huntington Beach, California where he started airbrushing surfboards in the popular surfing […]

Yuka Yamaguchi

Yuka is a self-taught visual artist born in Kobe, Japan. She studied English in Vancouver in 1995. She moved to Winnipeg in 2000 and immigrated in 2002. She’d lived in Kingston before settled in Saskatoon in 2005. Although she enjoys challenges, she struggled to adapt herself to the new environment as an immigrant. That’s when […]

Steve Oka

Oka is a Sansei, raised in southern Ontario from the 70s to mid 90s. He is honoured to work on the unceded, ancestral and traditional lands of the shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation and the Skwxwu7mesh Uxwumixw (Squamish Nation). Oka studied at Queens University in Kingston gaining a degree in Sociology. He furthered his education through the […]

Lauren Brevner

Lauren Brevner is a multidisciplinary artist based in Vancouver B.C on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her Japanese-Trinidadian heritage deeply inspires her practice with a focus on matriarchal influence. Her work combines traditional approaches to portrait painting with themes […]

Angela May

Angela May (neé Kruger) is a visual artist, writer, scholar, and community activist. Across all of these forums, Angela’s work explores the politics of loss, especially in her home of Vancouver, British Columbia, and particularly in the city’s Downtown Eastside. Her first major public artwork, a creative video called dear community, interrogated the politics of […]

Kimiko Fraser

Kimiko Fraser is an illustrator and historian-in-training based on the beautiful West Coast of British Columbia. She grew up constantly making—drawing, painting, knitting, sculpting, bookbinding etc—and has never learned how to stop. Kimiko earned a degree in Bachelor of Arts, Honours History, Major Visual Arts from the University of Victoria. Kimiko works with many mediums […]

Matt Miwa

Matt Miwa was born in North York, Ontario but grew up in Aurora, Ontario, 40 minutes north of Toronto. With his mother’s family living in the United States, Matt grew up surrounded mostly by his Japanese Canadian extended family (his father’s side), getting together annually for every single holiday – New Years, Easter, Mother’s Day, […]

Azusa Matsumoto

The Montreal Japanese Manga School « Manga Montreal » is the first school of drawing manga in Canada, founded by a professional Japanese mangaka. Manga Montreal is pleased and excited to offer manga courses, which focuses not just on the manga drawing techniques but also on the impact of Japanese anime and manga on everyday […]