Masako Takahashi

Shadows from the Past: Sansei Artists and the American Concentration Camps

Website:

https://www.masakotakahashi.com

Biography:

Masako Takahashi exhibits in museums and galleries internationally, including the Central Museum in Utrecht, Netherlands; the Galeria Charpa, Valencia, Spain. She has shown in Mexico at the Bellas Artes museum, San Miguel de Allende; the Museo de la Ciudad, Queretaro, the Instituto de Artes Graficas, the Galeria Quetzali and the Textile Museum, Oaxaca, Mexico. Among the many galleries she has shown In the US she are The Gallery at San Jose State University and the Jack Fischer Gallery, SF. Her work has been written about in several publications including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Mexico City Times, Forbes Magazine. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute, CA, Bard College, NY and graduated with a BA in Art from the UC, Berkeley. Born in the Topaz, Utah, Relocation Center of Japanese American parents, Masako Takahashi lives and works in San Francisco and has maintained a studio in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico since 1984. 

Artist Statement:

I never forget I was born in a concentration camp — in the USA, for being of Japanese ancestry.  My personal experiences are filtered through the making of artwork.  The kimono installation shown in this exhibition, Generations, is in honor of my parents and their courageous endurance.  Each of us has much to owe the folks who’ve gone before. Japanese have a saying that they are like their rice, they stick together. The kimonos touch each other at the sleeve, becoming a chain of kimonos, each one a link, a life lived and passing on to the next. The white hair I use on each kimono implies a lifetime of experience, memory, time. 

 

Generations
Generations, 2004 
artist's hair, vintage silk kimonos, dimensions variable (each kimono approximately 48” wide) 

Masako Takahashi uses the  Japanese kimonos as a medium in her installation series, Generations. The kimono is an iconic, globally recognized Japanese article of clothing. In Japan, black kimonos are worn by men and women on formal occasions, often embellished with a family crest. In the series, Generations, Takahashi hangs the kimonos with their sleeves touching. This indicates an unspoken intimacy and, as the title implies, the perpetuation of something Japanese from one to the next. Takahashi says, “I add my white hair to the kimonos, in homage to the hardships endured by those who have gone before me. Each kimono represents a life lived.“ 

 

  
Generations, 2004 (detail) 

 

 


Cargado, 2004 
black kimono, artist’s hair, kimonos, approximately 36” x 48” 
From Generations Series 

 

 

 


The Journal/Diario Series, 2014-2015 
human hair hand stitched embroidery on a bolt of silk woven for kimonos 

Masako Takahashi embroiders sequential vertical lines using her own invented language to mimic Asian script which cannot be read or spoken. She states, “The journal concept evolved as I began working on kimono cloth, so they can be unrolled, like scrolls, to be ‘read’. A space separates the days. When two spaces are skipped, two days have passed without working.”  Takahashi began the first Journal-Diario, after moving back to San Francisco from Mexico to be closer to her aging family. She says, “My concepts of time and heritage became visceral. The daily recording of the passage of time seems to relieve pressure, as I continued making these Journals through the Covid-19 virus period.” The Kimono cloth she uses is woven and sold in bolts of about 12 meters. 

 


Enso, 2003 
human hair scanned, printed on archival paper, 24” x 24" 

The Enso is a traditional Japanese image representing the Zen concept of absence.  

“My first introduction to high resolution scanning was in Oaxaca, Mexico, at the studio of Antonio Turok.  I ‘drew’ with my hair on the scanner. Unlike quick office scanners, this one took about 30 minutes, and the detail is minute.”  

 


Centrada, 2003 
human hair scanned, printed on archival paper, 24" x  24"  

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