Five Artists You Should Know During AAPI Month at Crystal Bridges

Celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month by learning about five artists you should know from the Crystal Bridges collection! Whether drawing connections between nature and art, experimenting with new techniques in clay and wire, or painting complex pictures of Asian American identity, these artists are sure to inspire you.

Watch the shadows cast by this hanging sculpture. The biomorphic (resembling something alive) form of Untitled hangs almost weightlessly, thanks to Japanese American Ruth Asawa’s unique method of looping flexible wire together to weave closed sculptures. Asawa (1926–2013) developed her modern art techniques while studying at Black Mountain College. The experimental college drew professors from the Bauhaus escaping Nazi Germany, as well as American icons of modern art. Here, Asawa built on the practice she began at 16 while incarcerated at a Japanese internment camp in 1942.

“My curiosity was aroused by the idea of giving structural form to the images in my drawings. These forms come from observing plants, the spiral shell of a snail, seeing light through insect wings, watching spiders repair their webs in the early morning, and seeing the sun through the droplets of water suspended from the tips of pine needles while watering my garden.”

JooYoung Choi’s (b. 1982) works look like something from a children’s picture book. Bright colors, imaginary forms, and playful storytelling spring up in three-dimensional sculptures. But take a closer look: what emotions are being shown? Choi frequently draws on her experience as an adopted child from Seoul, South Korea who grew up in America unaware of her birth parents. As a result, her art depicts a complex imaginary world she created called the Cosmic Womb.

“I know when I complete a new work, and step in front of it, it changes me. It changes my understanding of reality and broadens my belief in what is possible.”

In the Cosmic Womb, anything is possible. Choi, who is inspired by play, children’s TV, and themes of immigration and separation, is passionate about perpetuating joy rather than ugliness. Her childhood was characterized by uncertainty: her birthday, for example, was not her “real” date of birth, and in her art, she embraces different approaches to reality. In Time for You and Joy to Get Acquainted, a large red dinosaur in a flower field provides the perfect seat for several of Choi’s characters from the Cosmic Womb.

Maya Lin (b. 1959) is renowned for her architectural statement the Vietnam War Memorial. Despite outcries against her stark design and even her Chinese American identity, she was ultimately chosen as the architect for the monument. Since then, Lin’s art and architecture draw on the relationship between the art and its environment, something clearly shown in her work commissioned for Crystal Bridges, Silver White Upper River.

“I see myself existing between boundaries, a place where opposites meet; science and art, art and architecture, East and West. My work originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings.”

Fashioned from recycled silver–a conscious choice–Lin’s work maps the route of the White River through Arkansas and beyond. By only mapping the water, she draws attention to this invaluable resource. Its shape almost mimics human veins–fitting considering the lifegiving nature of water. Positioned over water in the Bridge Gallery, the silver flashes with sunlight in the same way the White River once flashed silver with an abundance of fish.

Born to Japanese immigrant parents in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011) was influenced by her natural Hawaiian surroundings and her traditional Japanese upbringing. She married the two in her ceramics, pushing the form from craft to fine art. By painting on her pottery with glaze, her three-dimensional “canvases” became works of abstraction.

“Clay is a sentient being, alive, animate, and responsive,” a material entity that “has much to say.”

Crater Moon displays her signature technique of building a closed pot with a tiny outlet and later closing the hole to form a hollow ball. Her round forms often contained rattles that created sound when moved. By making her ceramics non-functional, Takaezu forced viewers to see them as a true sculpture. During Tsukimi, the Japanese moon festival celebrating the harvest, you can see a rabbit in the moon making mochi (rice cake). What do the craters of Takaezu’s Crater Moon resemble to you?

What do the bold lines and flat colors of this work remind you of? Roger Shimomura (b. 1939) drew from two sources of inspiration: Japanese woodblock prints and superhero comics. While the woodblock prints represent his Japanese heritage–and his estrangement from it–the superhero comics were the media he consumed as a child growing up in America.

“The Japanese art that I knew about were all Japanese wood block prints, and those were very pop. It was just a stylistic step sideways really.”

He playfully mixes the two, often calling to light issues of identity and discrimination. Gordon Hirabayashi, American Patriot represents the case Hirabayashi vs. United States, in which an American citizen of Japanese descent was unjustly convicted in 1942. While the Supreme Court ruled against Hirabayashi, the case challenged the treatment of Japanese Americans during wartime. Shimomura’s family was also incarcerated during WWII when he was three years old. Drawing on his grandmother’s diaries from the time, he creates complex pop art and performance pieces that bend conceptions of “American.”

Come see these works and many others by Asian American Pacific Islander artists within the Crystal Bridges galleries! Curious for more art? Read last month’s highlight on environmental art or discover more women artists and their contributions to the collection.