BMoA explores identity in fall exhibitions

Sep. 27—The Bakersfield Museum of Art's latest exhibitions will take visitors on a journey of identity and personal exploration from the perspective of five Asian-American artists.

Opening Thursday, these collections mark the first time the museum's galleries will feature art solely from Asian-American artists: Japanese-American painter Bryan Ida, Korean painter Jun Yang, Taiwanese mixed-media artist Kacy Jung, Vietnamese-American sculptor Kieu Tran and Japanese-American artist Chiura Obata.

"It's an all Asian-American slate of exhibitions, but also, at the root of it, you'll find that it's really about the discovery of self and identity and how our surroundings influence that," said Victor Gonzales, the museum's curator of exhibitions and collections. "Those are all things that are very universal to anyone of any background."

The fall exhibitions came together serendipitously starting with Bryan Ida whose work came to Gonzales' attention while curating "The Circle of Sam Francis: Experimenting in California," which closed earlier this month.

Ida served as an assistant to Francis, the abstract expressionist painter who influenced a number of emerging artists while he was creating in his studios in California from the 1960s to early '90s, and some of his early pieces were selected for the Francis show.

"When we were talking about his work and what work to include in our show that summer season, he shared with me his entire catalog of work," Gonzales said of Ida. "One thing I noticed was the diversity and the subject matter and technique and inspiration behind everything. And immediately I knew — and I told him rather quickly — I would like to work on a retrospective for him at this museum in the future. He immediately agreed and was on board with that."

Ida said in his transition from composing music to pursuing visual art under the guidance of Francis, he employed a dedicated work ethic.

"There's so much work to choose from going through the early work. I basically was doing a piece a day. I just wanted to get pieces done. ... What happened was I did it on paper so I could store it away and not have to store it as a canvas. You know, 25 (paper) pieces in the space of one panel on canvas. So I put those away 25 years ago and haven't seen them."

"So it's like I'm seeing these pieces for the first time."

The artist, 60, said many of those early pieces were derivative of Francis' style as he worked to establish his own techniques, which he said really came to fruition about 20 years in.

"I always wanted to get away and do my own thing and I finally found my own voice, I think, in 2012 with the hard-edged city-based series that was very, very unique. A very unique vision and I was like,' Oh, now I'm finally getting somewhere."

Ida's latest work is portraiture including his "con.Text" series. It was inspired by the discovery of photos of his father and grandparents, who were among the Japanese Americans interned in the U.S. during World War II, in a series by photojournalist Dorothea Lange.

The portrait "Father," featured in the retrospective, is based on one of the photos of Ida's father as a young man at the camp, using text as the building block — in this case, Executive Order No. 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, that established the internment camps for those of Japanese descent.

"The 'con.Text' pieces are pretty much life-size," Ida said. "They're 5 feet tall. And it's all text and it's writing and writing and writing and writing. I damaged the nerve in my arm."

As Ida allows time for his body to heal, he continues to plan more portraits highlighting topics such as Mexican immigration, institutional racism and discrimination against minority groups, homelessness, women's rights, the LGBTQ+ community and more.

The artist feels his work continues to evolve, aided in part by his previous experiences.

"I think that's what Victor really liked about it. It's like, wow, this is kind of all over but there's also a continuity, this continuity from the music, because I did a lot of layering there with all the track recording and sound synthesis where we layered sounds together.

"That idea of layering is still with me today. Like layering the text on top of the text on top of the text. That's the same idea as I've always had. Build darkness. I always work from that idea."

When the exhibitions open, Ida said he's excited to see the retrospective of his work for the first time like everyone else.

"I'm going to be as surprised as everyone else when I see the show. ... When I do shows, the curator has a vision, it's like 'just let them go.'"

Also on display

In "Jun Yang: Blooming Journeys," South Korean artist Jun Yang is able to express his identity through a series of brightly colored paintings.

Gonzales said Yang has had quite a journey as an artist: "He grew up in South Korea, but because of the way he identified as a queer individual, he felt like he could not fit into the heteronormative expectations of what is expected there."

Before settling in San Francisco, Yang traveled the world finding that much of the art world was dominated by "well-known male white male artists and their viewpoints of the world."

It was in the Bay Area that the artist found his home, Gonzales said.

"When he came to San Francisco, that's when he found the community that helped him thrive and grow, accept himself and really then find the time to embrace his own artistic talents and journey, which was the LGBTQ and immigrant communities there and the Asian-American community."

Despite no formal training, Yang pursued art at age 34, motivated to create as a way to work through the loss of his parents, who died within a year of each other.

"His work is quite therapeutic. Everything is kind of inspired by him. He is his own muse. He is often trying to tie back to his Korean roots and heritage and his work and while also celebrating the queer and Asian-American community that helped build them up in the Bay Area."

His canvases feature exaggerated, larger-than-life figures who convey a strength and that comfort and stability that the artist was looking for and wanting as a child, Gonzales said.

Along with 15 works, Yung's first solo exhibit includes a site-specific mural that Yang created this week specifically for this exhibit.

For "Kacy Jung & Kieu Tran: Personal Archaeology," Gonzales found a natural pairing of the two women who had left STEM careers — Jung a trained biomedical scientist and Tran a former software engineer — to pursue their art.

"I saw some similarities between her and Kacy's body of work," the curator said of Tran. "I said, 'Let's put them together as a duo show and see how their works communicate with each other because they both work in the same vein, in the same subject, matter and narrative."

Jung, who immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan in 2008, often found herself at odds trying to connect Eastern and Western cultures.

Gonzales said the questions she addresses are those many U.S. immigrants face such as how do you meld into the land where you want to create a new life while also honoring your culture.

"Her work is an outlet to process and express her experience as an Asian immigrant and a woman while offering a safe space to initiate conversation and reflection. And she does that through photography and sculpture of her hands and using once again more of herself and her work."

Tran left her career in the Silicon Valley after some soul searching during the pandemic.

"She also realized that life is short and decided to dedicate herself to a more creative outlet. So she left this career, and financial stability, and decided to pursue something that was allowing her to further dive into herself and her soul and her personal self and address what are the universal emotions and experiences that we all have."

Tran's sculpture "Searching," which has been used in many of the promotional materials for the exhibitions, reflects the message of both Tran's and Jung's work, Gonzales said.

"This piece, I think, beautifully encapsulates both Kacy and Kieu ... to capture the complex and conflicting emotions of stagnancy, fear and optimism before deciding to make a life-altering change."

Rounding out the exhibitions is "Chiura Obata: Select Works," featuring woodblock prints by the highly regarded Japanese-American artist and educator who died in 1975.

"He is someone that has been on the museum's radar for quite some time, especially due to (BMoA) board member Laurie Maclin. She has always advocated and often proposed that we should have works of Obata on display. One because he fits most of what the museum's mission is about, which is celebrating California artists or work in or about California."

Six woodblock prints on loan from the Yosemite Museum will be on display as well as ink drawings by Obata from the private collections of Maclin and her cousin.

Gonzales said, "It's a wonderful, beautiful show, just nine works introducing Obata to this valley and this regional area, but with a long-term goal of having the opportunity to show Obata in a much bigger show in the future, to really allow the community to see what Obata was really well known for."

The fall exhibitions will remain on display through Jan. 6.

Stefani Dias can be reached at 661-395-7488. Follow her on Twitter at @realstefanidias.