Visual Arts

Jon Sasaki

Jon Sasaki is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist who explores many concurrent streams of inquiry that regularly intertwine in surprising ways. In recent years his Nikkei ancestry has been an area of research, and it has culminated in numerous projects that deal with the history of Japanese Canadians. For a 2019 performance and exhibition at the […]

Jo Anne Maikawa

The last ten years of my many years of teaching with the Toronto District School Board focussed on creating and disseminating anti-racist educational materials and processes. After retiring from teaching, I studied at the Toronto School of Art and completed a Visual Arts Diploma Program in 2003. I’ve also taken courses at Central Technical School […]

Naomi Sawada

Naomi Sawada is Manager of Public Programs at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia (UBC) where she has developed programs and collaborated with researchers, artists, and others since 1995. Two of her abiding concerns is to include discussions about diversity and social justice in her programming and to […]

Natalie Purschwitz

Natalie Purschwitz is a visual artist based in Vancouver, BC. Her work seeks out spaces between art, design, performance and daily life. Purschwitz has shown her work nationally and internationally at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Nikkei National Museum, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Canada House in London, England and the Prince Takamato Gallery in […]

Sherri Kajiwara

Sherri is Director|Curator of the Nikkei National Museum at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre in Burnaby. She has been a fine arts professional since 1992 as a gallerist, gallery director, gallery owner, writer, editor, publisher, and curator. She holds a B.Comm from the Sauder School of Business at UBC and is a graduate […]

Toru Fujibayashi

I was born at home into a world of chaos on the 23rd February, 1942 in Vancouver, BC, an enemy alien destined for internment in the Slocan Valley…brief stays in Popoff, Bay Farm, then settling in Slocan City. In 1963 fate would find me at the Alberta College of Art for 4 interminable years. And […]

Fumiko Greenaway

Fumiko Greenaway (née Endo) was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan on April 16, 1929, the eldest child of George Chohei Endo and Tomie Endo, formerly of Miyagi-ken, near Sendai, in northern Japan. A cook, George had come to Canada and followed the railroad east, finding a job with the CPR hotel in Moose Jaw. Setting […]

Shizuo Kato

Shizuo Kato was a Japanese Canadian artist who studied painting in Paris in the late 1930s. Originally from Vancouver, Kato worked at his uncle’s Powell Street shoe store and took night school art classes before travelling to Paris to study at the Cour de l’Academie Colarossie, former place of study for Picasso and Matisse. Ten […]

Haruna Murota

Haruna Murota developed her interest in photography in the early 90’s when she moved from her native Tokyo to Toronto. The inspiration of her photo-based artwork comes from her own internal and external journeys, and she uses abstract photography as a witness to her stream of consciousness. She holds a B.F.A in Photography Studies from […]

Stan Shikatani

Born 1928. Prince Rupert BC. Relocated to Toronto in 1946. Studied design, typography and painting. Honors Graduate. Ontario College of Art. Worked professionally for 10 years before accepting a teaching post at Sheridan College,School of Art and Design. Stan pioneered the graphic design curriculum in the field of design education at Sheridan and the level […]

Yurie Hoyoyon

Yurie is a multi talented girl in Vancouver; she is… An illustrator, graphic designer, portrait artist, greeting cards artist. Also a voice actress, MC, poetry event coordinator for the Vancouver based poet Soramaru Takayama, and a TV reporter of Nikkei TV. As an illustrator and a portrait artist, she has worldwide client base including North […]

Shinsuke Minegishi

Shinsuke Minegishi was born (1970) and raised in Tokyo, Japan. In 1991, he moved to California, USA, to continue his studies. Two years later he moved to Vancouver, Canada, to complete his undergrad education at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where he currently works as a studio technician and instructor. Shinsuke Minegishi is […]

Sayaka Isojima

Born in Osaka, Japan, Sayaka Isojima is a Vancouver-based ikebana artist who has studied at Ikenobo Ikebana School since 2012. Also, Sayaka has enjoyed studying photography at Vancouver Photo workshops since 2017. Group Exhibitions for Ikebana 2017 Powell Street Festival, Sakura day Japan Fair, Winterruption, Vancouver, B.C. 2016 Sakura day Japan Fair, Winterruption, Vancouver, B.C. […]

Kathryn Hatashita-Lee

Kathryn Hatashita-Lee was born in Toronto and raised in Vancouver. She studied for a B.A. in History at the University of British Columbia, where she worked for several years before marrying Roger Lee. A SEAD grant from The National Association of Japanese Canadians helped finance her second year at the Emily Carr College of Art […]

Emma Nishimura

Currently based in Toronto, Emma received her MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2013 and her BA from the University of Guelph in 2005. Her work ranges from traditional etchings, archival pigment prints, drawings and audio pieces to art installations. Using a diversity of media, her work addresses ideas of memory and loss that […]