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Leah Oates: What is your background and what was your progression as an artist? Yasuomi Hashimura: After I had left Japan in the late ’60s and after my couple years in Hawaii, I finally made it to the American mainland. I attended the Art Center of Design in Pasadena for a very short while because I had heard that it was a good school for photography but when I went there I was disappointed and disillusioned. I remember attending the Exhibition for Graduates and the work was all similar to each other — there was no sense of any kind of individual identity. |
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“I knew all along that I had no other choice but to follow my passion, but it was just the right thing to do.”
Yasuomi Hashimura, Hashigraphy, Future Deja Vu, Caracallen Baths XIII, Rome, 2008-09. Mixed Media, Courtesy of the artist.
Leah Oates Interviews Yasuomi Hashimura
Leah Oates
Leah Oates: What is your background and what was your progression as an artist?
Yasuomi Hashimura: After I had left Japan in the late ’60s and after my couple years in Hawaii, I finally made it to the American mainland. I attended the Art Center of Design in Pasadena for a very short while because I had heard that it was a good school for photography but when I went there I was disappointed and disillusioned. I remember attending the Exhibition for Graduates and the work was all similar to each other — there was no sense of any kind of individual identity. And I had left Japan to escape the herd mentality! I just felt that I could do a better job training myself — to develop my own voice and personality … Plus, I had no money. (laughs)
LO: Were there other artists in your family?
YH: My father was very into photography. He died when I was two so I never actually experienced him snapping away, but the house I grew up in was filled with photographs that he had taken — family portraits, snapshots, that kind of thing.
LO: Why did you choose photography as a medium?
YH: Well, as I said, my father had been into photography, and his camera became my first camera. So I don’t think I chose photography as much as it chose me. I was fascinated with it but I hadn’t really planned on becoming a photographer. My stepfather was an auto mechanic with his own garage in Osaka, and so I went to a vocational high school where I got mechanical training. I was expected to join the family business like my elder brother had, but when I turned 18 I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. I realized that I wanted to be a photographer. It was my true passion — what I spent all my free time doing. My stepfather was a gruff but kind man. I agreed to work at the garage for a year and give it a go. I knew all along that I had no other choice but to follow my passion, but it was just the right thing to do. There was a TV show on once and there was a movie playing about a tourist site photographer, you know, the kind who stands at the monument and offers memento photos for $1 and he joked if that was what I was going to do. I said “sure”, I didn’t care particularly; I just wanted to be any kind of photographer. On the other hand, he did try to understand. He introduced me to friends he had in the police department and they offered me a job as a crime scene photographer, but then, I suppose I did care about what kind of photographer I’d be. And it wasn’t to be the Japanese Weegee. (laughs)
LO: Please speak about the concepts in your work.
YH: Hashigraphy: Future Déjà Vu utilizes film negatives, photographic methods and painting techniques to convey an accumulation of time and captures landscapes of the 21st century to be discovered 1000 years from now.
LO: Who are your favorite artists and how have they influenced you?
YH: This is always a tough question for me because everything I’ve done in my life I’ve done on my own. I taught myself everything, I got to New York on my own, I opened a studio on my own, I found my own style and artistic character. And I think a lot of that was because I avoided classic arts education. I didn’t want to learn how to shoot in anybody else’s style. But I do have warm feelings for Andre Kertesz — the way I see and the way he sees has always felt familiar. And Man Ray — his concepts and constant experimentation both in-camera and in the darkroom I have great respect for. And Gaugin — because he was drawn to Tahiti and I had to go to Hawaii. I always liked the sense of freedom in his lifestyle.
LO: What projects do you have coming up in 2011-2012.
YH: Pushing Hashigraphy. Shooting fresh negatives for a base — I’m feeling out where I want to take it next. I’ve an idea but I’m not ready to share it yet.
