Aspect Ratio
March 12–April 13, 2018
Reception Thursday, March 22 at 5:30 pm
Artist talk at 6:00 pm
The University Art Gallery will be closed on Friday, March 30 for Cesar Chavez Day
The University Art Gallery is located in the Theatre Building (Bldg 7): See Campus Maps
Parking will be available free of charge in Lot 2 from 12–9 pm the day of the reception on March 22
Artist Bio
Koichi Yamamoto is an artist who merges the traditional and contemporary by creating unique and innovative approaches to the language of printmaking. Koichi has worked with meticulous copper engravings to large-scale monotypes. Yamamoto completed his BFA in 1992 at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon then moved to Krakow, Poland until 1994, and Bratislava Academy of Fine Arts in Slovakia in 1995 to study copper engravings. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Polandin in 1996 and then completed his MFA at University of Alberta, Canada in 1999. He also worked as a textile designer in Fredericia, Denmark in 2000. Koichi’s prints explore issues of the sublime, memory, and atmosphere. He has exhibited internationally and taught at Utah State University and University of Delaware. Yamamoto is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Another achievement he has accomplished is climbing to the top of Vulcan Cotopaxi (19,347’) in Ecuador.
Artist Statement
The focus of my work is discovering process and variability in production. For the past 5 years I have been engaged with an intaglio printing process that I have developed called the Reflective Transfer Method.
In 2017, I had a wonderful opportunity to further explore and expand my graphic work using this method in a variety of residencies. My intention was to create various forms to understand the dynamic and power of wind, using intaglio print methods that I have been working with. I began the investigation on Kaua’i in the Hawaiian Islands to produce intaglio prints related to naval architecture. The second residency at the JoshuaTree National Park in Southern California took the work into the functional form of intaglio printed kites with traditional materials, such as bamboo from Hawaii and paper from Japan.The kites were flown in the wind of the Mojave Desert, where the behavior of those kites was then recorded. Finally, I explored Moorish architecture and its history in Spain and Morocco, making images utilizing the method of bisymmetry and combination. Producing in various locations, there were unintentional influences and curious discoveries from the journey. I share my discoveries in the images of this exhibit.
Updated: May 30, 2023