Yoshihiro Kitai is Artist-in-Residence at Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts

Alumnus and longtime Printmaking faculty member Yoshihiro Kitai is the next Artist-in-Residence at Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts in Pendleton. Kitai will spend two weeks at Crow’s Shadow developing limited-edition prints, which will be hand-pulled by Crow’s Shadow’s collaborative master printer, Judith Baumann. The final prints will enter the permanent collection, as well as be available for purchase by the public. Crow’s Shadow will host a reception and artist talk for Kitai on Thursday, August 22nd from 5 pm to 7 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

Kitai is an Assistant Professor of printmaking at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. Originally from Osaka, Japan, Kitai moved to the United States in 1994 after studying at Tajimi Ceramic School in Gifu. Kitai holds a BFA in Printmaking from the Pacific Northwest College of Art (2002) and received his MFA in Printmaking and Drawing from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in 2004. Kitai is represented by Froelick Gallery in Portland. Kitai will be an Artist-in-Residence at CSIA during August 2019.

Kitai primarily makes work on paper, using drawing, painting, and printmaking, combined with the sensibilities of practice and repetition he learned making pottery. He frequently uses a Japanese type of pigment similar to watercolor called gansai, creating tiny dots or brush strokes meditatively repeated into seas of rhythmic patterns. He emphasizes surface and material contrast by using passages of gold or silver leaf which evoke the stylized clouds of traditional Japanese screen paintings. The shimmering metallic surfaces oscillate between foreground and background, leaving openings later filled in with delicate, undulating points of pigment. A limited color palette highlights the subtle shift in gradients as the paint in each brushstroke fades after its initial saturation. The resultant works feel simultaneously restrained and joyful, eliciting a sense of orderly quietude.

Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts is located on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in the foothills of Oregon’s Blue Mountains. Crow’s Shadow is a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization formed in 1992 by local artists James Lavadour (Walla Walla) and Phillip Cash Cash (Cayuse and Nez Perce). Its mission is to provide a creative conduit for educational, social, and economic opportunities for Native Americans through artistic development. Over the last 27 years Crow’s Shadow has evolved into a world-class studio focused on contemporary fine art printmaking.