The World of Joyce Kamikura

Artist's Statement

My Paintings represent my personal response to my environment. My ideas are not whole but fragments of what fascinate me and are seeds from which my works begin to develop. As a result, although my works undoubtedly have roots in my daily living, they may be a good deal removed from reality; some of them may be quite representational while others become abstracts.

By exaggerating vibrant colours, entertaining visual textures and other elements of design I take my painting mediums beyond their traditional execution; into mixed water media, acrylic, collage and oil. A subject leads to an idea. Then it becomes an immediate cause for me to paint, ultimately experiencing fun and struggle of permutations and possibilities deriving from that idea. It is not so much in the final product, but in the process and struggle to bring all elements together to function in harmonious presentation in a painting, that I derive so much satisfaction and pleasure as an artist. Visit my other site: http://joycekamikura.wordpress.com/

Thursday, September 28, 2017

2017, July internment Trip

When Canada declared war on Japan, the federal government forcibly removed over 21,000 men, women and children of Japanese ancestry from the west coast of BC, starting in 1942. They were sent to temporary homes in internment camps, road camps, and self-supporting sites outside a 100-mile radius of the coast line. The largest camp, Tashme (today’s Sunshine Valley) was self-contained and many men from this camp were sent to build Hope-Princeton Highway. Many were sent to the BC Interior’s “ghost towns” located in the Kootenay/Slocan Valley areas: Greenwood, Slocan City, New Denver, Kaslo, Rosebery and Sandon. Some were sent to leased farmers’ fields: Bay Farm, Popoff, Lemon Creek. Roger and I were still babies when Roger’s family went to Slocan City, and mine to Lemon Creek.

As 2017 is the 75th Anniversary of the Internment, we joined a tour group, many from Toronto and Los Angeles with historians expert in the field of the Japanese Internment. It was a good trip, and we learned a great deal about injustices suffered by our parents, many of whom were born Canadians.