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 […]

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 […]

Kan Azuma

Born in Japan in 1946, Kan Azuma studied photography in Tokyo in the mid-1960s before moving to Canada in 1970. The majority of his work was based in Toronto, but he also spent some time in Vancouver before returning to Japan in 1980. Azuma’s most significant body of work is his black and white series, […]

Marlene Howell

MARLENE HOWELL (née Seki) marlenehowellgallery.com Marlene was born in Toronto and moved to Vancouver Island in 1996. Since then she has lived in and has exhibited her artwork in Khartoum, Sudan, New York City, and Phnom Penh, Cambodia before settling in Victoria, BC. Her artistic development is a result of the influential instructors at the […]

Shinya Kumazawa

Inspired by the beautiful scenery of High Park, Toronto, Shinya Kumazawa has been living and painting in Toronto since 2000. Mesmerized by the shifting seasons as they unfold on the 400 acres, ranging from blooming cherry blossoms from his homeland to changing fall leaves and glittering snowscapes typical of the Canadian landscape, Shinya has created […]

Sharon Sasaki

Family Physician, Visual collage artist, Science Fiction Author. Visual art focuses on creating abstract or impressionistic images depicting creatures both real and imaginary in collage using Japanese papers: washi and momi papers. Science fiction novels include: Welcome to the Madhouse, Genesis, Bud by the Grace of God, Amazing Grace (soon to be published), Hiro’s Hardship […]

Yuriko Kubota

Yuriko began her art studies as a painter, studying oil painting and received her B.F.A from at Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo, Japan. She went on to study photography under Shin Sugino in Toronto where she has been living and working since 2004. Her works have been shown in various galleries around […]

Noriko Yamamoto

Noriko Yamamoto is a mime, dancer, choreographer, Silent Storyteller, and visual artist. She studied ballet, modern and jazz dance in Japan and New York before studying mime under renowned mime artist, Mamako Yoneyama. Noriko’s work on stage and television, and doing promotional work (commercials, etc.) for various corporations took her across Japan for 15 years. […]

M.A. Tateishi

M.A.Tateishi is a Vancouver painter inspired by bright colour and geometric form. Her unique creative process involves up to twenty layers of painting and drawing on tissue applied to wood panel. Then the layers are torn away to reveal the history of the artwork. Finally, resin is applied to create translucency. Her artwork has been […]

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 […]