80th Anniversary Charity Art Auction to Benefit the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL

Aya Uekawa

Study for Japanese Anti-Asian

Lot Closed

February 8, 10:17 PM GMT

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Aya Uekawa

b. 1979 Tokyo, Japan

Study for Japanese Anti-Asian

Executed in 2007.

Pencil on paper

24 x 18 ⅞ in. (61 x 47.9 cm)

Framed: 25 ⅝ x 20 ½ x 1 ¼ in. (65 x 52.1 x 3.2 cm)

Please note that while this auction is hosted on Sothebys.com, it is being administered by the Norton Museum of Art (the “Norton”), and all post-sale matters (inclusive of invoicing and property pickup/shipment) will be handled by the Norton. As such, Sotheby’s will share the contact details for the winning bidders with the Norton so that they may be in touch directly post-sale.

Courtesy of Private Collection, New York

Aya Uekawa's subject matter is almost exclusively women. Though the lack of sufficient representation of women in various professional fields remains a significant issue, the themes behind Uekawa’s work go deeper than the artist and her characters’ shared poker faces would belie. In the larger national discussion of marginalization and the hierarchy of discrimination, the Asian perspective is often dismissed or placed on the back burner of presumed cultural priority. Uekawa’s work reflects on the "othered” American existence, while both rejecting and appropriating what many consider to be white-western standards of beauty and success. Her sketches and paintings are a reflection of psychological innerworkings—expressions of feelings like fear, vulnerability, and hope.

Following numerous exhibition participations in Japan and the United States, she presented her first solo show at the Kravets|Wehby Gallery in New York in 2006. Selected exhibitions are "Three-persons Exhibition" at Baltimore Museum of Art (2013), "Going International" at FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2010) and "Sanctuary Dreams," at Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (2009).