My artwork deals with the interaction between the real and imaginary. Using various media and autobiographical elements, I have been exploring issues of sexual identity and desire. As a Japanese woman who has been culturally conditioned to contain rather then reveal, I am interested in uncovering my own identity by aggressively evoking emotional reactions from my viewer's.

Education:
2003 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine
2000 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Master of Fine Arts, emphasis in Photography
1997-98 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island Photography Department
1997 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois Bachelors of Fine Arts, Photography

Awards:
2003 Skowhegan Fellowship
2002 Photo-Eye Awards "?Best Figure Study and Nude Book" for monograph Poo-Chi
2001 Artists Fellowship Grant, Illinois Art Council
2000 Bruce Goodman Memorial Fellowship
1999 Honorable Mention, Professional Development Fellowship for Artists and Art Historians, College Art Association
1998 T.C. Colley Award, Rhode Island School of Design
1996 Nippon Steel U.S.A. Presidential Award

Exhibitions :

2007 Thinking the Multiple, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA PHOTOARTE, Brescia Italy
Free Rein/Full Play - New Chicago Photographer, Ellen Curlee Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri, MO Bangkok International Art Festival, Bangkok, Thailand

2006 A Travel on the Contemporary Photography, Galleria PaciArte, Brescia, Italy
Photo New York, New York, New York
A Distant Mirror , M.Y. Art Prospects, New York, New York
500,000 Tons of Pure Energy, Three Seasons Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
My Idol, M.Y.Art Prospects, New York, New York (Solo show)
Festival of Love:Video Series, Asia Society, New York, New York

2005 Gallery Collection Summer 2005, M.Y.Art Prospects, New York, New York
"Poo-Chi", Galerie Cornelius Pleser, Munich, Germany (solo show)
Good in Bed: Sex, Eroticism and Pornography, James Baird Gallery, Newfoundland, Canada
"Poo-Chi ", M.Y.Art Prospects, New York, New York (solo show)
"DIrector's lounge", Berlin, Germany (Video screening)
"Gimme Some of That!" , Gallery 1926, Chicago, Illinois

2004 She-Snap, Schof Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
FOTOAMERICA 2004, Santiago, Chile
"Occurrences : the Performance Space of Video " traveling show, Gallerie Soleil, Lexington, Kansas
"Re:Source", Art In General, New York , New York
"Relating to Photography2, Fotograpie Forum International, Frankfurt, Germany
17th Evanston + Vicinity Biennial, Evanston Art Center, Evanston Illinois
"Stuffed Memories", a site specific installation, L.C. Bates Museum, Fairfield, Maine (2003-2004)

2003 "Occurrences : the Performance Space of Video " , Betty Rymer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois (Traveling)
"Tanqueray No. ten Night Life Chicago" Gallery 312, Chicago, Illinois (Catalog)
2002 "No Live Girls", Lance Fung Gallery, New York, New York
"Peep Show 28/No Live Girls" , The Lusty Lady, Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California
"Interrogating Diversity" The Betty Rymer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

2001 "Media Impossible", Ssamzie Space, Soul, Korea (Catalog)
"Hidden", Center for Asian Arts and Media, Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois
"Plutonium", Gallery O, Tokyo, Japan (solo show)
"homecoming", Gallery O, Tokyo, Japan (solo show)

2000 "In a Plain Brown Wrapper: Pornography, Art and Video", Gallery 2, Chicago, Illinois
"Group Show", Gallery 2, Chicago, Illinois
"Land-Out", Gallery O, Tokyo, Japan
"Uncut Special Edition", Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England
"Exchange Video Screenings", Slade School of Fine Art, University College
London, London, England and School of Multimedia Art, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore
Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
1999 "Degree of Influence", ARC Gallery, Chicago, Illinois

"Group Show", Gallery 2, Chicago, Illinois
"Yellow/Face", Pilson East Gallery, Chicago, Illinois (Catalog)

1998 "Scope 3", Artists Space, New York, New York
"Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism and Self-Representation", MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1997 "New Talent 2", Contemporary Art Workshop, Chicago, Illinois
Bachelor of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Collection : Midwest Photography Program, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Illinois
Randolfo Rocha Collection, Belo Horizonte, M.G. Brazil
Tanqueray Collection, New York, New York
Monograph : Poo-Chi, hardcover, Nazraeli Press 2002