5 JAPANESE WOMEN
WHO HAVE LEFT THEIR MARK ON HISTORY

 

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Kimiko Yoshida: Feminist Visual Artist

Born in 1963, Kimiko Yoshida is a contemporary visual artist who left Japan for Paris in 1995 after feeling oppressed as a woman. In her own words:
“I’ve turned my back on any ‘quest for identity’ and what goes with it: appurtenances and ‘communities,’ stereotypes of ‘gender’ and determinism of heredity. The self-portrait isn’t a reflection of oneself, but a reflection on the representation of oneself.”

The image of the ideal Japanese woman, though not completely without change over the last century, has remained virtually the same, which Yoshida found frustrating. Since 2001, she has built up a distinctive signature style in her artistic photography and art. Her work, mostly consisting of portraits in quasi-monochromatic colors, are joined by a singular thread: the female condition, and more broadly, the question of identity.

As Yoshida tell TW:
“My work is a reflection upon the division between representation and meaning, representation and disappearance, representation and absence, signifier and signified.”