Naoko artist working

Artist statement

Can the act of art-making redeem guilt? I want to believe it can. My creatures cast an iridescent sheen over the feelings I hold for them. Even as I skin, gut, or cremate them, I whisper apologies for what’s to come. I ask them where they’re from, who shaped them, whom they’ve been with. In that exchange, a part of me transfers into them. I feel their resistance, their pain. I care deeply about them. Compassion threads through my hands, through the work, reaching outward to the viewer.

I don’t save them. I don’t offer them to a higher purpose. But still, the act of making has a purifying effect. Not quite therapy—more like a ritual that steadies me. In the process, something is softened: the creatures, my guilt, the audience’s unspoken burdens. The past doesn’t vanish, but perhaps it fades, even slightly. Guilt, regret, sorrow, desire, love, tenderness, generosity—all tumble together and emerge changed.

A piece of me is always embedded in the work. I breathe life into them.

  • Exhibitions

    2014 Works on Paper, NYU Langone Medical Center by The Art Student League of New York, New York, NY

    2013 24th International Juried Exhibition, finalist, chosen by Juror Elizabeth Sussman, Viridian Artists Gallery, New York, NY

    2010 21st International Juried Exhibition, finalist, chosen by Juror Elizabeth Sussman, Viridian Artists Gallery, New York, NY

    2009 Group exhibition, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, CA

    2009 Oxaca-CAlifornia, Biblioteca Andres Henestrosa, Oaxaca, Mexico

    2008 Group exhibition, Micaéla Gallery, San Francisco, CA

    2008 CCA MFA Exhibition, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA

    2008 Media Monster, Nahl Hall, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA

    2007 Oxaca-CAlifornia, Biblioteca Andres Henestrosa, Oaxaca, Mexico

    2007 Centennial All-College Honors & Scholarship Awards Exhibition, Tecoah Bruce Gallery, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA

    2007 Everything was Perfect II, solo exhibition, Beet Gallery, Portland, OR 

    2007 Future Tense, the Gensler, San Francisco, CA

    2006 16th National Ceramic Competition, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo, Texas

    2005 Everything was Perfect, Solo Exhibition, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY

    2003 Made in Clay, Greenwich House Pottery, New York City, NY

  • Bibliography and Publications

    https://bunnywax.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/december-first-thursday-2/

    Gallery Crawl, http://www.kqed.org/arts/gallerycrawl/episode.jsp?id=22770
    Portland Art Dealers Association Gallery Guide    , September 2007 Exhibition 

    The Asian Reporter, September 25, 2007, p. 14

    Ceramic Monthly, [October 2007], p.42

    San Angelo National Ceramic Competition Catalogue, 2006

  • Education

    California College of the Arts, MFA 2006—2008

    SUNY New Paltz, MA 2004-2005