Keisho Okayama: Zenkai to Tatsuko,
A Gift of Transmission
Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
December 8, 1990 to January 27, 1991
“My paintings are finally at home here at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center. This show relieves for me the anguish of the many years of alienation from the country of my birth and of so much confusion and guilt about my sense of obligation to its culture. Having lived in this country since the age of two, I am a Japanese American. Inherent in that classification, however, is a dichotomy of values which cannot be dealt with, at least, at the more profound levels of one’s psyche, without enormous stress. There is a reason why the JACCC is called a cultural and community center. I am sure that its directors know well the reasons why, but also know equally well of the problems created by such delineation. Cultural, of course, means Japanese, and community must mean American. To be an American means that one is essentially multi-cultural, and any attempt to posit a specific cultural identity then creates a stressful dilemma.
“I have sub-titled my show ‘From Zenkai and Tatsuko, a gift of transmission’. I wish to make clear that my parents’ gift of transmission to me and my brothers was not cultural in that large imposing sense of culture but a transmission that resulted from the daily intimacies of our lives – in the unadorned living out and the natural unembarrassed exposure of their strengths and weaknesses that only intimacy will allow. It is a gift that has required time for me to accept, but in its acceptance it has allowed for me a freedom beyond the constricted confines of the usual cultural context. Surely, it is that fundamental intimate linkage with other human beings that serves as a basis for art and culture. If my paintings are truthful, they should give evidence of my conflicting dualities, but hopefully resolved in a matrix of intimacy.”
– Keisho Okayama, 1990
Following are Installation shots of the show:
Keisho Okayama: Recent Work
FIG (First Independent Gallery)
April 20-May 21, 2016
“My paintings are about how color and the brushwork interact to create an intimate and harmonious pictorial space. I have no preconception as to what I am about to paint. I simply start painting and assume that the painting will resolve itself in the process.
“Nature has always been an abiding inspiration and influence in my work. However as an artist, I cannot discount all the experiences that one encounters in life, the art works in history that I have seen, and the fact that I was born in Japan must certainly enter in. I am so grateful to have painting in my life, because the act of painting tends to dispel my feelings of insecurity and anxiety that frequently cloud my consciousness.”
– Keisho Okayama, 2016
Following are Installation shots of the show:
Heritage X
JACCC (Japanese American Cultural and Community Center)
September 12-October 31, 2021
In 2021, Heritage X at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) included seven paintings by Okayama, along with works by Nob Hadeisho, Mike Kanemitsu and Sawako Shintani. The exhibition documented the responses of these four artists to postwar abstraction. Okayama’s work, ranging from figurative to color field, echoes the movement’s interest in the spiritual and unconscious. His paintings ranged in date from 1992 to 2015. Hadeisho was influenced by the 60s art scenes of New York and Los Angeles. Kanemitsu’s painting style was closely aligned with New York Abstract Expressionism. Shintani’s sculptural work in bronze, cement and clay reflects the innovative and non-utilitarian spirit that emerged in California’s ceramics community. The curator of the show, Hirokazu Kosaka, wrote “These artists represent a unique intersection of Japanese American artists during an explosion of U.S. postwar creative experimentation, three of them linked by the famous Chouinard Art Institute. They represent our artistic heritage.”
Installation shot from the show:
