Roger Shimomura
An American Diary
January 23, 2015 at 7:30 p.m.
Hudson Concert Hall, Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center
Willamette University
Nationally renowned artist Roger Shimomura spent part of his childhood in a Japanese American internment camp during WWII. He will talk about that experience as part of Willamette University's Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration.
Shimomura, a third-generation American of Japanese descent, is lecturing on the theme of "Life interrupted, a look at displaced communities." His personal stories examine the stereotypes that have profoundly shaped his 40-year career as an artist.
Through a style that combines his childhood interest in comic books with the traditions of American pop art and Japanese woodcut prints, Shimomura uses his paintings, prints and experimental theater pieces to address a range of sociopolitical issues faced by Asian Americans.