Student Reviews: Yuko Shimizu
__________________________________________________________________________________
Yuko Shimizu Lecture
Anna Hegarty, Washington University
Yuko Shimizu, a New York based illustrator originally hailing from Japan, gave a lecture in Steinberg Auditorium on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis on Wednesday February 18th at 6:30p.m. The lecture was part of the Sam Fox Public Lecture Series.
The turnout for the event was the largest so far this year for a Steinberg Auditorium lecture, exceeding seating capacity and causing audience members to take seats on the floor. The audience did not seem to mind and appeared to consist mostly of students from the university.
When she took the podium her way of speaking in short, incredibly blunt and very funny sentences made it immediately evident the lecture would be entertaining as well as informative. The lecture began with a short introduction to what the illustration industry is, followed by the history of Shimizu’s career.
She spent part of her childhood in New York and upon returning to Japan she never felt like she belonged there. Under pressure from her parents she studied Marketing and Advertising at Waseda University instead of pursuing a career in art like she thought she wanted to. She worked as a PR executive until her early thirties when she experienced a self-labeled mid life crisis and moved back to New York to pursue art. Once back in New York, she enrolled at the School for Visual Arts and graduated in 2003 with a MFA from the Illustration as Visual Essay Program. Since then she has been working as an illustrator.
Illustration is a very broad field that includes artwork for advertisements, magazine illustrations, book covers, posters, calendars, and many other types of two dimensional work. Shimizu has produced work in many of these venues. The progression of her work shows leaps and bounds in understanding of spacial relationships and ability to create atmosphere. Her style is influenced by her childhood in Japan, but she did not always let her Japanese past influence her. After arriving in New York she tried to forget her past and continue her life as an American Illustrator, but eventually her artistic growth hit a wall and she realized she had to embrace her artistic instincts. Through her personal work she developed a style that incorporates her childhood desire to draw cartoons and the influence of Japanese culture.
Currently, she is very comfortable creating work that is generalized as “Asian” due to its references to Japanese prints and Chinese and Japanese culture. One example of this is in her piece, “Panda Bear girl-The first Asian American Superheroine,” created for a calendar of her work that incorporated many incorrect Asian generalizations and references to both Japanese and Chinese culture. This piece shows a cartoonish, female character who is wearing traditional Japanese shoes with Mount Fiji in the background and incorrect Chinese characters on her shirt and in the upper left hand corner. This piece replicates the style of traditional Japanese prints, and the graphic style resembles an etching in certain places. The color pallet used is very limited, including only red, yellow and a pale greenish blue. Sexualization of Asian women is shown through the high cut white leotard and thigh high black socks this woman is wearing. As a relatively recent piece, from 2004, this is an example of Shimizu’s matured style.
Her personal work is much more explicit and sexual than her illustration work, and she showed the tamest pieces during the lecture. Some of the themes in her work are polka dots and stripes, the significance of which she cannot explain but both seem to have penetrated not only her work but also her personal style. She wore a black and white striped shirt to the lecture which seemed identical to multiple articles of clothing depicted in her work.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Yuko Shimizu Lecture
Brittany Mikottis, Washington University
On Wednesday February 18, the Japanese illustrator Yuko Shimizu visited Washington University to speak to students and staff about her work as part of a Sam Fox speaker series. She opened her presentation by describing how she started her career in the corporate world majoring in marketing and advertising because her parents would not let her study art. She grew up in a very traditional family in Japan for most of her childhood, except when her father got transferred to New York for three years during her adolescence. Shimizu never really felt she belonged in Japan, describing herself as a “black sheep” among the rest of her peers. When she was young she would stay inside at recess and draw in her sketchbook while all the other kids went out and played dodge ball. As an adult she moved back to New York and began fulfilling her dreams of becoming an illustrator.
An illustrator is an artist that creates images impossible to capture with a camera. They often, but are not limited to, do work for newspapers, magazines, album covers, and book covers that do not want or have a photograph to go along with them. Illustrations are everywhere, but people still do not really understand what an illustrator does. A big part of their focus is to create an image that will engage the audience and hint as to what the piece of writing or music is about. Illustrators generally draw in a more animated style. Shimizu’s style has a strong resemblance of Japanese cartoons. A large amount of the work she is hired to do has Asian related subject matter because of her Japanese culture. However, she really likes working outside of Asian subject matter; especially because it gives her the opportunity to read pieces that she probably never would have read otherwise. She gives an example of a piece she did on an article about oil under the ground in Israel.
She draws out all of her images by hand and then puts them onto the computer to fill them in with color. Many of her pieces involve a human figure along with many patterns and colors. Stripes and dots are present in numerous pieces of her work. She also tends to use a wide range of colors. Some of her works are very bright and vibrant and others incorporate more neutral and desaturated colors. Many of her works consist of portraits. Portraiture is a very important skill for illustrators because over fifty percent of jobs require portraits.
Shimizu used to get frustrated because she had a very hard time drawing people accurately. She originally thought it was just a hard skill to develop. However, she later found out that she has a brain dysfunction called face blind disorder, which makes her unable to recognize people’s faces. She did not let this stop her from continuing to pursue her dreams of being an illustrator. After much hard work put into learning how to draw portraits she is now able to draw them tremendously which is obvious in the piece she showed of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie from the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
It was eye opening when she spoke about the process of designing a magazine cover about the sluggish economy. She showed each step in altering the illustration as the editor of the magazine changed his mind as to what he wanted. Many drafts of different images finally led to the final product of a person flying on a snail over the New York Skyline. Shimizu did not express strong frustration when describing this process; she was able to laugh at some of the client’s ideas for their ridiculous qualities. Having a positive, cooperative attitude is very important when working in an industry such as illustrating because they work closely with clients.
Concluding the lecture, she made a special point to emphasize the importance of individuality. Embracing and expressing oneself should be a top priority in everyone’s life in order to be happy. She talks about how she feels she did not belong in Japan but it is still a big part of who she is. As a result Japanese culture is evident in much of her work. It was humbling to hear such an established artist talk about something that is often lost when people become very successful. Her presentation gives hope to many art students in the audience that they can make it doing something they love. The audience erupts in applause at the finish of her presentation. Shimizu’s shining personality and unique works captivated the audience’s attention and provided an exceptional experience.
Shimizu spoke mostly about the technical aspects of her work and very little about the symbolism within her personal work. The intent was to inform the audience about the career of an illustrator and not to focus on the actual work. This caused a lack of context for the personal piece Shimizu showed. The lecture was a jovial affair due to Shimizu’s sense of humor, and was also enlightening about the illustration field.
