Websites: www.yayoiasoma.com
www.cueartfoundation.org/yayoi-asoma.html
E-mail: yasoma@gmail.com

Artist Statement

My paintings are built through exploring the notion of recollection. I am interested in how memory works as a constructive process that reproduces, filters, changes and interprets the past.

My work speaks through the familiarity of the home, where spaces of our everyday lives entwine perpetually with the memories and associations of our experiences. While a house is often referred to as a home, the concept of "home" is broader than a physical dwelling. Home is often a place of refuge and safety, where worldly cares fade. Home is an experience as much as a specific place.

In my earlier works, I worked to recreate the spaces of my home directly from memory. I documented the spaces with the scrupulous care of a witness, but even the best witnesses lie, misremember and miss important details. Preoccupied with how memory should look, I relied too much upon a "logical" understanding of space.

The basis of my paintings has since shifted and I now use photographic images as a starting point. The photographic source helps me grasp and portray the specific nature of the space. In addition, I am intrigued by the flat surface of a photograph and the camera's ability to unsympathetically frame a space. I very rarely work from a single photograph. Instead, I revive the image source through the process of photocopy, Photoshop and collage. This sifting process enables the generation of a new image-one that is estranged from its original source and serves as the guideline in the construction of the often fragmented and disintegrated spaces in my paintings. The final compositions of my paintings incorporate several different views of the space, shifting spatial relationships and creating fractures and pockets.

Ultimately, I paint to make new spaces-creating paintings within paintings and rooms within rooms, with thick layers of paint and densely overlapping perspectives. To spend time in front of these paintings is to see them change. Figures and objects move in and out of the viewer's attention, as each painting seems to present an analysis of the processes of seeing and remembering.

PUBLICATIONS
Westfall, Stephen. CUE Art Foundation Catalog Essay. October 2008
Genocchio, Benjamin. "Art Review; Those Who Teach, Can." New York Times, October 29, 2006

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2007-present Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY
Adjunct Professor: Color I, 2D design, drawing fundamentals
2007-present Studio in a School, New York, NY
Teaching Artist: Teaching art in New York City Public Schools, PS 112M & PS 300x, PS 206M to grades 1st through 5th grade
2006-2007 Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Instructor of Record
2005-present New York State Summer School of the Arts, Brockport, NY
Master Teacher: Designed and taught 2 two and a half hour classes everyday to youths ages 14-18 at an intensive summer arts program.

EXPERIENCE
2007-present Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Assistant Coordinator, Visitor Service
2006 Mason Gross Annual Student-Faculty Show, New Brunswick, NJ
Exhibition Coordinator
Coordinated and supervised all aspects of the exhibition, including artist correspondence, collection and installation of works
2006 Rutgers Center for Innovative Print & Papermaking, New Brunswick, NJ
Print and Paper Making Assistant
2004-2005 Hoberman Designs, Inc., New York, NY
Freelance model maker/ proto-typist
2003-2004 JETRO, NY (Japan External Trade Organization)-JASMEC (Japan Small and Medium Enterprise Corporation), New York, NY
Research Assistant: Aided director in researching and preparing overseas presentations on current economical and political status of the United States. Translated English documents into Japanese.
2002-2003 CITYarts, NewYork, NY
Administrative Assistant: Responsible for organizing and filing development paper work, researching funding opportunities, assisting patrons.
Studio Assistant: Worked with sculptor Zigi Ben-Haim in developing proposals for various grants and fellowships.

Yayoi Asoma is an artist and educator living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI and her MFA in Visual Arts from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Recent solo and group exhibitions of her work include Yayoi Asoma: Curated by Stephen Westfall, CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY; inScape/outScape, Memorial Arts Gallery, Providence, RI; Viking Funeral Mountain, Celestial Suitcase, Brooklyn, NY; The Grass is Greener on the Other Side...So What?, Leo Fortuna Gallery, Hudson, NY; Artist As Teacher, The Studio, Armonk, NY; Passages (2004), OSLO, Brooklyn, NY; Drawings (2006), Agora Gallery, Knoxville, TN and her work has been reviewed in the New York Times. Asoma is an adjunct professor at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY and teaches at public schools in New York City through Studio in a School. She looks forward to her summer respites in Western New York where she has been working with talented high school students at the New York State Summer School of the Arts for the past ten years.