Noriko Sugita Becraft

Artist Statement

Living here, in an unfamiliar land with people of unfamiliar background, and remembering my own family members’ experiences during and after the war, I often think about what it is to be human—how we live as imperfect creatures between avarice and morality, in pain and joy, obstinately existing before an unknown future.

In my art, I explore my own deep sensory experience and my own psychological journey.

My images on canvas and on paper express things I can’t visually recognize but do feel, such as human nature and emotion, which I find mysterious and sometimes unreasonable or ironic. Creating natural shapes, and recreating the things I see daily around me, are my favorite motifs, motifs that at some level impersonate how we exist as humans.

The color combinations I use may come from my own traditions, such as from the palette of the kimono. The modern apparel industry uses about 2000 dye samples. Yuzen Kimono color samples are about 4000. Even in the 18th century there were over 800. Exploring such traditions informs my art, though I work in different media, in a different land.

I depend on momentary inspiration. I let shapes and colors explore deep thought, as a choreographer explores complex thought through dance composition. Improvised movement of impersonated shape suggests symbols and patterns reflective of human emotion and relationships. I layer thin pigments, creating reminders that our human experience is layered. Sometimes I change directions, covering or leaving snippets behind.

In creating visual images, I feel and evoke my own circumstance. I notice my own life. I seek possibility though I may work toward an unknown result. I believe that art process, like life itself, is not hopeless, even though a final image may be unknown. I believe that having no clear image in front of me is actually valuable—that if I knew the end from the beginning I would lose my appetite to begin. I’ve learned that if I reach, I will find something valuable, somehow, somewhere.

Artwork teaches me daily that I’m human.

Group Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

Current Representation

Collections

**Awards & Membership

Art Education and Art Experience

Invited as a guest speaker for a Willamette University Art Department class, Salem, Oregon, October 28, 2007.

Recipient of woodcut print commission from a private collector, enabling the purchase of a Takach press and other printmaking equipment, 2006.

Instructor for reduction woodcut, Southern Oregon Printmakers Association, Ashland, Oregon, 2005.

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting & Printmaking), Southern Oregon University, Ashland, Oregon. 2004. Summa Cum Laude

Shodo (Japanese calligraphy) and Sado (tea ceremony)

Certificate, License and Other Experience

Certificate in Teaching Japanese as a Second Language, Japan Language Institute, Sapporo, Japan. 1989.

Japanese National Nursery School Teacher’s License. 1976.

Japanese Teacher, Beaverton, Oregon. Classes for small groups of students at Tualatin Valley Junior Academy. Tutoring of junior high and high school students one-on-one. 1997-99

Japanese Teacher, Sapporo, Japan. Classes for small groups of Japanese second language learners at the Japan Language Institute. 1992.

Teacher, Hakodate Adventist Nursery School Hakodate, Japan. 1975-78