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Contact: Cara Jaye, Western Washington University associate professor of Art, (360) 650-3739 or cara.jaye@wwu.edu

BELLINGHAM – Artist Maki Tamura will present a lecture on her mixed media works on paper from 2:30-3:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 24 in Fine Arts Room 238 on Western Washington University’s campus.

For more than 10 years, Tamura has been using watercolor on paper to merge cultures through their decorative artistic traditions. Tamura’s work consists of constructed drawings and hanging sculptures that explore motifs found in 18th and 19th century European decorative arts.   She also fabricates wallpaper that is applied as a foil to the two- and three-dimensional work.  Wallpaper with burnt edges and irregular shapes create an atmosphere of decay emphasizing a history or a glimpse into a bygone era. 

Tamura’s objects are philosophical incursions into the nature of representation and history.  Tamura subverts the hierarchical relationship between picture frames and their interior by crafting the entire object out of paper and blurs the distinction between drawing and sculpture.  The viewer is asked to fill in and participate in constructing the narrative. The images tend to focus on the flora and fauna of the natural environment as seen through the Victorian Age of Discovery.

Tamura was born in 1973 in Kyoto, Japan and lives and works in Seattle. She received her master’s degree in Art from the Tyler School of Art in 1999 and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington in 1996.  She has had solo exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum, Dallas Museum of Art and galleries in Rome, Italy and Lüneburg, Germany.

For more information contact Cara Jaye, ²ÝÁñÉçÇø associate professor of Art, (360) 650-3739 or cara.jaye@wwu.edu