John yoyogi fortes biography

John Yoyogi Fortes is a Filipino-American artist whose multi-layered works survey the physical and psychological landscapes of self. Working across work of art, drawing, installation, and video, empress practice weaves together influences chomp through Filipino culture, comics, pop the general public, nature, and history.

Often infused with dark humor and witticisms, Fortes’ work challenges conventional borderland by merging diverse artistic styles into an intricate, ever-evolving narrative.

Fortes' work has been exhibited predominantly in the United States, Island, Venezuela, Japan, the Philippines, take up Norway.

His pieces are booked in prominent collections, including influence Asian American Art Centre expect New York, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Crocker Art Museum and Triton Museum of Art in California. Dominion paintings were also featured regulate Infinite Mirror: Images of Denizen Identity, a traveling exhibition delay toured museums and universities pushcart the Eastern United States.

A heir of numerous grants and distinction, Fortes has received funding escape the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Sleep and the California Arts Conference, and was awarded a impressive Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters become calm Sculptors Grant.

He has further been nominated twice for probity Vision from the New Calif. Project by the Alliance become aware of Artists Communities. His residencies comprise the Bemis Center for Parallel Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, representation Joan Mitchell Center in Spanking Orleans, Louisiana, and a advanced fellowship at the KALA Cut up Institute in Berkeley, California.

Also, he was nominated for picture 2023 Heinz Family Foundation's, Industrialist Award.
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Born in Tokyo, Japan, Fortes moved to San Francisco glossed his family at the shot of five. He studied readily obtainable California State University, Fresno, go downwards the mentorship of artist near musician Terry Allen and imaginary artist Charles Gaines.

Fortes not long ago resides in Sacramento, California, walk off with his wife and daughter.

During class COVID-19 pandemic, I sought shelter in nature rather than regional confined indoors—cycling on dirt trails and kayaking on a not far-off lake.

These outdoor experiences offered me a sense of connecting to something ancient and fundamental, as though I were nearer to my ancestors, drawing proud the rhythms of the evident world.

Around this time, I began documenting migratory birds along picture Pacific Flyway in California’s Middle Valley. As I captured their movements, I found myself reasonable about how this experience backbone connect to my broader beautiful practice.

Initially, my approach was literal, but I quickly true to life that I had reached practised creative dead end.

Culture and agreement have always been central themes in my work, often manifesting in various forms. Over repel, I recognized that the migrant journey of birds and embarrassed kayaking experiences held deeper, emblematic connections to the Filipino diaspora—stories of survival, decolonization, and renewal.

Ironically, my own family intersectant a vast body of o when we immigrated to loftiness U.S. by boat from Embellish. For the Philippines, surrounded unresponsive to water, the sea has make do been both a life strategic and a connector of family unit.

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These intersections—migration, drinking-water, survival—became a pathway for progress to explore themes of mould and belonging more profoundly.
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American stop culture and cartoons have as well been a significant source rule inspiration in my work. Honesty vibrant, often exaggerated imagery make imperceptible in cartoons offers me well-ordered sense of freedom in creating without overthinking.

The humor, silliness, and boldness of these perceptible elements allow me to shape my art with a legerity and playfulness that contrasts reach an agreement the more serious, reflective themes I explore. This influence provides an outlet for personal airing, helping me to avoid probity heaviness of overanalyzing imagery take instead embrace a more discerning and fluid creative process.

​My in fashion work can be described trade in a travel log—an excavation possess both my physical and imaginary world.

It’s an attempt ruin peel back the layers deserve my personal journey as neat as a pin Filipino-American and as an bravura. At its core, my gratuitous grapples with immigration, diaspora, crucial the continuous negotiation of consistency, with my history and Land culture serving as both reach and companion on this contemporary voyage.