Tomie Arai

b. New York City

lives and works in New York City

studio is a few blocks from the WTC

a third-generation Japanese American, grand-daughter of Japanese farmers who settled in this country in the early 1900's

married to Legan Wong, has two children and is a grandmother

activist/artist/philosopher/poet/historian, printmaker, installation artist, and public artist who has realized commissions from the Arizona Humanities Council, Cambridge Arts Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art Program, the General Services Administration of the Federal Government, and the National Endowment for the Arts

has worked collaboratively with community groups for over thirty years and sits on the boards of the Museum of the Chinese in the Americas, the Coast to Coast Women Artists of Color Organization, and the Bread and Roses Cultural Project of the 1199 Health and Hospitals Workers Union

has designed public art works for Creative Time, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the General Services Administration's Art in Architecture Program for which she designed a mural to commemorate the African Burial Ground in New York City

recipient of two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in Printmaking, a 1995 Joan Mitchell Visual Arts Grant, a 1997 Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Visual Artist Residency, and a 1994 NEA Visual Arts Fellowship

explores the relationship of art to history and the role that memory plays in retelling a collective past

recent works include a series of constructions that incorporate silk-screened photographs addressing issues of identity, displacement, and acculturation


Tomie Arai

Tomie Arai at Asian Arts Initiative

Tomie Arai - New York University Asian/Pacific/American Department First Artist in Residence 1998/1999

Tomie Arai at Lower East Side Printshop

Tomie Arai at Staller Art Gallery

Tomie's Chair

Tomie's Chair reviewed in Asian Reporter

China's Bravest Girl - The Legend of Hua Mu Lan

Sachiko Means Happiness


Tom Bolling's home page