Iona Rozeal Brown’s art comments on her interest in Japanese culture and its fascination with hip-hop and African American culture.

Her pieces are inspired by ukiyo-e printmaking and teenagers in blackface in Japan. Because that was a thing. In the mid 1990s kids in Japan were flipping a figurative bird at traditional Japanese society that was obsessed with how white they could make their skin. And what better way to rebel against white skin than blackfacing right? Wrong. But they did it anyway. And it didn’t stop with their skin. Kids would bleach their hair, and clip in dreadlocks. They would apply heavy black eyeliner and white concealer for eyeshadow and lipstick. Gotta get that contoured look ya know? This practice is called ganguro and went out of fashion just as quickly as it went in, but is the focus of Brown’s work to this day.

Brown’s fascination with Japanese culture started when her mother took her to a kabuki play when she was eleven years old. Her mother told her that there were no women in kabuki theater to which Brown replied the classic preteen response of “whatever.” But when Bando Tamasaburo walked out onto that stage in full drag, something inside Brown lit up. She went on to get her BFA at the San Francisco Art Institute and her MFA at Yale. Though she didn’t really understand her interest in Japanese culture at first, it started a life-long obsession that was not stifled even after her experiences with the highly offensive ganguro style. Her persistence and interest has resulted in the most badass body of work imaginable.