Roger Shimomura
CHINESE IMPOSTER #5, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
54 x 54 inches (137.2 x 137.2 cm)
CT-9077
Further images
Incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp as a child, Roger Shimomura’s paintings combine pop art iconography, traditional Asian tropes, and stereotypical racial imagery to question conventions of identity. In the...
Incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp as a child, Roger Shimomura’s paintings combine pop art iconography, traditional Asian tropes, and stereotypical racial imagery to question conventions of identity. In the propaganda poster-inspired Chinese Imposter #5, the artist depicts himself in a crowd of Chinese men, commenting on the supposed inability of Americans during World War II to tell the difference between people of Chinese and Japanese descent. Surrounded by various state-sanctioned versions of the “ideal” man, he lifts his sleeve to reveal a tattoo spelling “Minidoka,” the name of the internment camp where his family lived for more than two years. The painting is an indictment of America’s incarceration of its Japanese-American population, and a criticism of the state’s motivations in defining masculinity.
Exhibitions
New York, Cristin Tierney Gallery, Seminal: Masculinity in Contemporary Art, October 13 - November 18, 2023.
New York, Cristin Tierney Gallery, All American, April 26 - June 15, 2024.