Peek in the Park: Roger Shimomura's Nisei Trilogy

At the age of 3, Roger Shimomura and his family were forcibly removed from their home in Seattle and incarcerated at Minidoka concentration camp during World War II. In 1945, his family returned to Seattle, where Roger lived and attended school. After a short time in the ROTC, he went back to school studying art. After obtaining his MFA from Syracuse University, Roger taught at the University of Kansas until 2004.

Image: An American in Disguise, Courtesy of the Tacoma Art Museum

Many of Roger’s works highlight the complexities of identity, especially those that Japanese American faced during World War II. Using a combination of Japanese imagery and American pop art, modeling Andy Warhol’s satirical style. 

Working with survivor and fellow sansei Lawrence Matsuda, Roger created Nisei Trilogy, a series of three prints with text dedicated to the experience of racism, discrimination, and incarceration. Additionally, one of the prints speaks to the patriotism of those who served in the United States armed forces with their family behind barbed wire.

In addition to Nisei Trilogy, Roger Shimomura has created hundreds of pieces depicting jarring concentration camp scenery with iconic figures and images

Shimomura also created Friends of Minidoka’s logo. In describing the iconography, Roger explained, “When I was asked to design a logo for FoM, I chose a tar papered barrack – the singular, most powerful object in this confined environment.”