This exhibition will be presented online at www.artxchange.org, with a Digital Premiere opening reception held via the ArtXchange Gallery Facebook page on Thursday, May 21st at 6:00 pm PDT. Please join us on this virtual journey to Iida’s studio in Cambodia for a guided tour of this new series!
ArtXchange Gallery is proud to present 32 Aspects of Daily Life, a new series of mixed-media, paper cut-away portraits by Lauren Iida. In this exhibition, Iida pays homage to a series of the same name, created in the 1880s by Japanese woodblock artist, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892). Utilizing watercolor and ink, alongside her distinct paper cut-away technique, Iida depicts female-identifying people that she has connected with during her daily life.
Much of Iida’s work grows from her desire to document life around her and the varied cultural impacts that shape her world. As her work has developed, Iida has often alternated between exploring her Japanese American family history and documenting her current life living in Cambodia over the last 12 years. In this new series, Iida has struck an unusual balance by utilizing formats inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock artists, whose works were the popular story-telling vehicle of their time. Within this framework that pays homage to her ancestral history, Iida depicts people from her daily life in Cambodia, resulting in in a unique style that reflects the multifaceted culture she has created for herself.
The series Iida references, 32 Aspects of Daily Life (also known as 32 Aspects of Women) by Yoshitoshi, portrayed women from different backgrounds and occupations, each associated with a particular mood or character trait. The series, first published in 1888, became wildly popular in its time for depicting women from all areas of society, offering a more realistic representation of women in art than was commonly seen. As in Yoshitoshi’s series, Iida’s subjects include prostitutes, wives of the working class, the elite, and people challenging gender roles. Mythology, symbolism, and nuance in color and pattern are taken into account, sometimes as a playful reinterpretation of the meaning or aesthetic of Yoshitoshi, and other times drawing from Japanese or Cambodian culture. In each image, the nuances and subcultures of daily life in Cambodia can been seen - from weavers of fishing nets, food sellers and street vendors, to traditional dance performers and fortune tellers.
Since graduating from Cornish College of the Arts with a BFA in 2014, Iida has exhibited her work throughout the PNW region at numerous venues, including ArtXchange Gallery, the Mayor’s Gallery at Seattle City Hall, Shoreline City Hall, Tacoma Spaceworks and Sculpture Northwest. She has received a GAP Grant from Artist Trust, a Fellowship from the Art Matters Foundation, and her work has been collected and commissioned for permanent public installation by the City of Seattle, the City of Shoreline, WA State Convention Center and Sound Transit. In Cambodia, Lauren Iida leads contemporary art tours and is the founder of the collective Open Studio Cambodia which supports emerging Khmer artists by offering art materials, professional practices training, and opportunities to exhibit.
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