Art Roundup: The Academia Issue
by Sally Lopercio
Mixed media (broken pottery and scrap materials). 2022.
Artist statement:
For the Academia issue, a collection of broken pottery & scrap materials form an A+ image.
Perhaps a slight nod to Asian immigrants who may hold high expectations for their family members to excel both academically and professionally. For Asian Americans there is often a pressure to succeed & live up to the ‘model minority’ stereotype
Sally is a mixed race mama & the creator of Patine Jewelry. As a small business owner, based in Olympia (WA), she repurposes broken & discarded items in effort to turn them into unique pieces of wearable art. She works primarily with damaged pottery, dishware, scrap clay & other second-hand materials.
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by Riri Tamura
Artist statement:
During the pandemic, I started lettering as a way to express my creativity apart from my full-time as a designer. More recently, I have been experimenting with different lettering styles and adding illustrations to my pieces. My process for all my lettering pieces come from different phrases or art prompts that I find on Instagram. From there, I sketch the layout and start diving into adding details.
Riri Tamura is a multi-disciplinary designer, hand lettering artist and illustrator based in Southern California. She is an ambitious creative who strives to create work that impacts society in a positive way. In her career, she has worked with global brands from various industries like Twitter, Western Digital, Hasbro, Cash App by Square, Adobe, Hasbro, Asians in Advertising and Period.org. She has been featured by ShoutOut LA, Adweek, The Side Show Awards and Adobe.
At the Head of the Class by Julie Lee
Artist statement:
At the Head of the Class is a print series depicting yearbook photos where the child’s body has been erased. Glowing in the dark are headlines on AAPI academic and media history published the year the school photograph was taken. This is about the gifted child who was the talk of the community and the school, but struggled in making themselves be truly heard in the midst of the pressure thrown at them.
Julie Lee (she/her) is a Korean-American artist from Alabama working primarily in photography and collage. She recently graduated with a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) from Carnegie Mellon University and is residing in Pittsburgh, PA. Her lens-based works explore themes of ancestry and the photograph as existential affirmation. Her work has been exhibited in Woman Made Gallery, Columbia University’s PostCrypt Gallery, the Curated Fridge, the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, and Filter Space. Her work has also been featured in publications such as the Journal of Art Criticism, Yale University’s Asterisk* Journal of Art and Art History, Hyperallergic, and Fraction Magazine