ARTIST STATEMENT
My artwork focuses on themes of distance, belonging and the fluidity of cultural difference, and the slipperiness of identity. Okinawan and Hawai‘i diaspora and mixed race representations are subjects that run through my work. I start with autobiographical impulses and draw inspiration from popular culture, textile design, personal and community photographic archives, and oral history interviews. I collect these images, stories, and histories, and I see what is missing, what is not being told, what is not obvious, and I go hunting for it. I am interested in the overlap, fusion, disjuncture, gap, and vibration that happens when I bring back the missing pieces and put them together.
Asian American studies, contemporary Asian American art, Critical Mixed Race Studies, and feminist/queer theory form the nexus of my intersectional scholarly research, publications, and projects.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Laura Kina is a mixed-race Okinawan American artist-scholar based in Chicago. She is a Vincent de Paul Professor in The Art School at DePaul University. Contemporary Asian American art; Okinawan, mixed-race, and critical ethnic studies; and feminist/queer theory form the nexus of her intersectional art and scholarship. Kina is a 2021 3Arts Make A Wave recipient, a 2020 ART Matters Foundation grantee, and a 2019 Joan Mitchell Foundation Artist-in-Residence awardee. She has exhibited at India Habitat Centre and India International Centre, Nehru Art Centre, Okinawa Prefectural Art Museum, Chicago Cultural Center, Japanese American National Museum, Rose Art Museum, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Spertus Museum, and Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, amongst others. Kina is co-editor of “Queering Contemporary Asian American Art” (University of Washington Press, 2017) and “War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art” (University of Washington Press, 2013). In 2019, Bess Press published her trilingual (Pidgin/Japanese/Uchinaaguchi) illustrated children’s book “Okinawan Princess: Da Legend of Hajichi Tattoos” written by Lee A. Tonouchi.
© Laura Kina