Dialogue Beyond Time and Space

Joan Takayama-Ogawa is a ceramist who was born in Pasadena as a third generation of Japanese American. She is a renowned artist by using ancient Japanese ceramic forms as a guide in creating contemporary pieces with decorating and imagery drawn from an American lifestyle. Recently, she has begun to explore contemporary themes such as climate change. Her ceramics are included in the permanent collections of numerous museums throughout the world, including the Smithsonian Institution, DeYoung Museum of Fine Arts, The High Museum, World Ceramic Exposition Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oakland Museum of California, Long Beach Museum of Art, and American Museum of Ceramic Art. Takayama-Ogawa is also an educator who currently serves as a professor in Ceramics, Product Design, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Creative Action at the Otis College of Art and Design.

Keiko Fukazawa is a Japanese ceramist, active in US. She has created work in multiple national and cultural contexts, embracing cultural hybridity that says “anything goes.” Her recent residencies in Jingdezhen, China, known as the “porcelain capital” of the world, have sharpened and expanded her perspective, inspiring her to further push social and cultural boundaries with conceptual art. Fukazawa’s work has been widely exhibited at galleries and museums in the US and internationally, including being in permanent collections at the National Museum of History in Taiwan. She recently showed solo shows at Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles and Gerald Peters Contemporary, Santa Fe, and continues to participate in numerous group shows across the country. Museum exhibitions have included the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the American Craft Museum in New York and the Arlington Museum of Art in Texas.

Agnes C. Lee is an established Chinese American painter. She earned her Master and Ph. D. degrees in Physical Chemistry from Bryn Mawr University. She was a great scholar and researcher in the scientific and medical professions in her background. After her retirement, she has been devoting her life to art and painting and she is succeeding. She seeks to interpret millennium-old poetry about life, love, friendships and nature. She describes her work as “Poetry in Painting, Painting of Poetry”. Her work combines modern art forms with calligraphy brush strokes, lines, and movements by meticulously inscribing them countless times in vibrant colors. The creation process is a Zen meditation, with music rhythms and dancing movements reflected in the “running script” style. Her heritage continues to be present in each piece of work she creates, conveying her Chinese cultural signature to a broad cosmopolitan audience.