Visiting Artists: Takuya and Minami Yoshida

By Alaysha Zhang, Chengyue Zhang, Chelsea Zhou, and Sophie Zhu

On Tuesday, OMA and the art department partnered with Japanese artists Takuya and Minami Yoshida to host a sushi dinner with students. Takuya’s work focuses mainly on landscapes while M. Yoshida sculpts. The dinner focused on students studying Japanese or art and those in the AAPI community. During their stay at Exeter, the artists visited art classes, OMA affinity groups, and Japanese classes. In the evenings during studio hours, the artists worked on their own projects. Besides interacting with students, T. Yoshida and M. Yoshida presented a slide show open to the public in the Mayer Auditorium.

Art Department Chair Carla Collins briefly explained the planning process of the short residency program.“The artists hosted by the Art Department are heavily researched, vetted, and usually interviewed to ensure that they would be a good fit for Exeter. As a department, we talk about how a visiting artist would be useful in our curriculum, and we consider bridges they can build to other departments,” Collins said.

T. Yoshida and M. Yoshida were in residence at Exeter for an entire week.“We wanted them to have a lasting impact on students, especially our student artists, and people who identify as Japanese and who take Japanese language classes. It was powerful to see T. Yoshida and M. Yoshida working alongside our students and providing demonstrations as well,” Collins continued.

In activities planned through their residency, prioritiziation was given to AAPI-identifying students in the art department. “Representation is so important for students because it allows them to not only feel validated in particular fields of interest, but more importantly, it gives them a sense of belonging in those fields,” OMA coordinator Kerrie Tinsley explained.

The sushi dinner on Tuesday was designed to be intimate. Students fluent in Japanese helped translate for the artists. “Since our artists were most comfortable speaking in Japanese, we felt it was important not to have the language barrier hinder them during our dinner,” Collins said. “I also wanted to keep the dinner small so as not to overwhelm the artists or students, and the conversations that materialized were golden and incredibly special.”

Many students enjoyed interacting with the artists in a relaxed setting. “It was a pretty friendly event,” lower Shiqiao Zhang said. “We talked a lot about different things regarding Japanese culture, Exeter culture, their art, and our own perspectives and opinions on the art.”

“I got a lot of chances to speak Japanese with the artists and also learn about a lot of Japanese culture,” Zhang continued. “The sushi was also a nice break from my otherwise monotonous food here.”

“The atmosphere was friendly and outgoing in general. People were open to asking questions to the guests. And we had students who were willing to translate for everybody from Japanese to English and back,” lower Nicolas Li said.

Students enjoyed interacting with artists in their art class as well. The artists performed demos. “Minami-san took a little coil, a snake of clay, rolled it up, and made it a dome. Then she stabbed the dome and made a face on the dome,” senior Phil Avilova explained. “It’s modeled after traditional Japanese sculpture. She said she likes to do these kinds of sculptures because they peer into the soul.”

“Takyua and M. Yoshida speak to deep Japanese roots inspired by the Superflat Art Movement and artists, such as Yoshimoto Nara, and the ancient ceramics figurative sculptures from the Heian period (793-1185). They both are also inspired by abstract expressionists and classical techniques,” Collins said.

Students resonated with the artist’s works. “[The paintings] touched me especially, with their vibrant colors and the beautiful, garden-like utopia scenes. I remember someone asked a question — why does T. Yoshidaalways paint the humans in one single color, sometimes orange, yellow or even blue? He answered: first, large patches of color make his work more identifiable from a distance; but to him the most important message is that we are all the same,” upper Ava Zhao said.

“In days when we’re busy with schoolwork, seeing pictures of their gentle, snowy world was a pleasant reminder that there is so much more about life outside Exeter,” Zhao added.

After talking to the artist, Zhang gained insight on the amount of freedom Art can have.“You can go anywhere you want in art. It’s not restricted like the forms we are used to. It’s always a good idea to explore new ways of doing art because sometimes creativity really just comes from this desire to push existing limits and try different things,” Zhang said.

When asked what Takyua and M. Yoshida wanted students to take away from this experience, Takyua said he wanted students to understand that even though pursuing art is a difficult path, He thinks “there are many ways to keep an artist career going. Maybe it is a hard path, but it’s hard in every study. So I want kids to pursue and find what they like to do, maybe it’s art, maybe not. But I hope they can pursue what they like to do.”

The artists’ journey reassured many art students that it is possible to make a living out of being an artist. “A lot of artists here are discouraged from making art because it’s impractical. But you can make it work,” senior Phil Avilova said. “You can rent a gym in the middle of nowhere and do artin it. That’s what [T. Yoshidaand M. Yoshida Yoshida] did.”

Artist Takyua and M. Yoshida’s weeklong visit concluded. Students were not only able to interact with the artists and learn about their art and hometown over dinner, but also see the artists paint in action. Takyua and M. Yoshida also reflected on their visit to Exeter, Takyua said that he enjoyed seeing “so many diverse kinds of people; for example, so many different people taking Japanese.” Students also enjoyed the warm atmosphere during the sushi dinner while getting to know the visiting artists better.