Kaori Takamura

Kaori Takamura is a visual artist who immigrated from Japan and lives and works in Carefree, Arizona. Her artistic explorations are inspired by childhood nostalgia that spark memories of 1970s post-war Tokyo, where the rapid economic growth of an otherwise traditional culture was suddenly inundated by Western influence. The two contradictory ideologies began to strangely intermingle in the everyday mundane. Kaori explores these juxtapositions by infusing Western toyetic sentiments into a tactile artistic language that overlays concepts reflective of Eastern values such as the sublime aging process; the meaning of the passage of time and occurings in life. Kaori’s artwork has been exhibited in such venues as Phoenix Art Museum, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, San Jose Museum of Textile and Quilts, NOMAD II/ Torrance Art Museum, Dairy Arts Center, Boulder CO, Tempe Center for the Arts, and numerous other galleries nationally and Internationally in Arizona, California, Washington D.C., New Mexico, Utah, and Tokyo Japan. Kaori has received grants from Contemporary Forum/Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona Commission of the Arts Opportunity Grant, and has participated in 18th Street Artist Residency in Los Angeles, California, Tempe Center for the Arts in Tempe, Arizona, Vermont Studio Center in Richmond, Vermont, Digital Fabrication Residency in Laurel, Maryland.

Kaori is represented by Gebert Contemporary, Scottsdale Arizona.