One Thousand Prayers

I am moved when human beings continue to live with pride and hope even under difficult circumstances like wars, natural disasters, poverty, or discrimination in its many different aspects towards minority groups. Other circumstances beyond the control of our individual abilities or wisdom include loss of health and the death of loved ones. The beauty that can come from vanity, uncertainty, fragility, sadness, and the weakness of being a human touches me. Simultaneously, I find the energy, creativity, witness, humor, and love, human beings can bring to these circumstances encouraging. My work and collaboration projects have been trying to connect with these moments to express the beauty of being human.

“One Thousand Prayers” is body of work I have been creating for the last fifteen years. They are my prayers for things I don’t have control over but I have responsibilities toward as oe living in this world. There is a common belief in Japan concerning the numbers one hundred and one thousand. For example, if you make one thousand paper cranes, your wish will come true. Obviously, the fulfillment of prayers or wishes does not happen for real often, but we as human beings would like to believe in something, especially when those prayers and wishes involve things beyond the control of our individual abilities or wisdom. Even though we live in the twenty-first century and I see human variety, uncertainty, and fragility, but I also see beauty there. During the process of repeating an action on hundred times, or one thousand times, our worries erase a little, and the time spent completing these tasks can meditate us. This meditative time is real, unchangeable, and universal.

In spite of the problems I hear of and experience in daily life, I would still like to believe in and express the beauty of being a human being through my work. It is important that my work hold universal beauty, which can connect to all human beings. I hope that beauty reminds each of us to connect to our own individual spirituality in this universe.

I am originally from Japan where the medium of printmaking and works on paper has a long tradition and is a highly respected art form. I often feel that printmaking and works on paper are less valued in the U.S. I observe that many prints are made for painters and sculptors, for whom printmaking is an important, but ancillary medium. One of my missions is to share the prints, which only a printmaker can create. I want to transform the paper so it no longer speaks as “paper”, but has a density of physical presence that is one with its imagery. By using many different printmaking marks, I wish to unify existing mediums and layers into a seamless language. I would like my work to invite its audience to enter a seemingly infinite and paradoxically intimate space they become installations or environmental works, which interact with the architecture and create their own atmosphere. I like the possibility of the work “breathing” in its specific environment. The fusion of artwork and space allows for a concentration of attention, much like prayer.

Artist Biography

Yoshiko Shimano was born in Tokyo, Japan and currently resides in New Mexico. She obtained her Masters of Fine Arts from Millis College in Oakland California in 1991. She has many different solo and group exhibitions located in galleries all over the world, including Tokyo, Japan. Shimano has participated in many collaboration projects and community/international outreach projects starting in 2002 and continuing into present day. She has received an abundant amount of grants and fellowships to go along with her vast teaching experience. She currently is the Associate Professor of Printmaking at the University of  New Mexico.