Esther Shimazu is an American sculptor who was born in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

in 1957. Her grandparents were immigrant laborers from Japan. She attended the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

before transferring to the

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the Public university, public university system of the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes six campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell ...

in Amherst, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Art in 1980 and a Master of Fine Art in 1982. She is best known for her

stoneware Stoneware is a broad class of pottery fired at a relatively high temperature, to be impervious to water. A modern definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refractory fire ...

sculptures of bald, nude chunky Asian women constructed with hand building techniques. They are colored with

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* ...

and oxides, bisque-fired, hand-sanded, and colored further with rubbed-in and airbrushed oxides. Then they are fired to cone 5-6 oxidation and sanded one last time. She received a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Purchase Award, 2001, and an Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the

Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts Hawaii ( ; ) is an island state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only state not on the North American mainland, th ...

, 1995. In 2020, Shimazu participated in a Zoom webinar offered by the John Natsoulas Center for the Arts called "Learn how to build a dog" where she interacted with viewers while constructing a ceramic dog. Shimazu's work was included in the 2021 Hawai‘i Craftsmen Annual Statewide Exhibition at the Downtown Art Center.

References

* * Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, ''The Contemporary Museum Biennial of Hawaii Artists I'', Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, 1993, pp. 14–15. * Hartwell, Patricia L. (editor), ''Retrospective 1967-1987'',

, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1987, p. 96 * Morse, Marcia and Allison Wong, ''10 Years: The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center'', The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, 2006, , p. 102 * * Yoshihara, Lisa A., ''Collective Visions, 1967-1997, An Exhibition Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Art in Public Places Program, Presented at the

Honolulu Academy of Arts The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. It has one of the largest single collectio ...

, September 3-October 12, 1997'', Honolulu, State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, 1997, p. 82.

Footnotes

1957 births Living people Artists from Honolulu American artists of Japanese descent American women ceramists 20th-century American ceramists 21st-century American ceramists Ceramists from Hawaii 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women sculptors 21st-century American women sculptors 21st-century American sculptors {{US-sculptor-stub