Nov. 1, 2021, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The work of artist Tatsuki Hakoyama, a Grand Rapids Community College adjunct instructor, is the subject of an exhibit in the campus’s Paul Collins Art Gallery.
Hakoyama is a native of Japan who has taught in GRCC’s Visual Arts Department since January, this semester working with students in the AT 140 Drawing 1 class.
The exhibit will run through Nov. 18 in the gallery, located on the fourth floor of newly renovated Raleigh J. Finkelstein Hall, 143 Bostwick Ave. NE. Admission is free.
Although he enjoys working with a broad range of content and media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, papermaking, and digital drawing, he said his passion is creating allegorical paintings influenced by magical realists.
Hakoyama said his influences include magical realist painters such as George Tooker, Peter Blume and René Magritte.
“These paintings depict magical narratives that invoke a sense of uncanniness to seemingly mundane scenery,” he wrote in an artist statement for the exhibition. “These compositions analyze, criticize, and question the human struggle — both physical and metaphysical — and provide social commentary on relevant topics relating to identity, education, and impact of globalization and technology in our social structure.”
Hakoyama earned a bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University.
His work has appeared in numerous exhibitions throughout Michigan and has received recognition, including a first-place Juror’s Award at 2021 Art Walk Central in Mount Pleasant, the Martin Maddox Prize for Imaginative Realism at 2020 West Michigan Areas Show in Kalamazoo, and a 2D Juror’s Award at 2019 Regional Arts Exhibition in Grand Rapids.