Tim Okamura
The immediacy and accessibility of Okamura’s work as a graphic designer may have been reinforced by his work at the Bennet Book Advertising agency in New York (1993 – 1994); regardless, he has spent the rest of his career making art and teaching at New York schools such as the Fashion Institute of Technology, the City University, and the Parsons School of Design.
Okamura’s solo exhibitions include Urban Portraits which was staged at the Cutting Room in New York and Axis Art in Calgary, and Bricks, Locks & Obstacles at New York’s Kanvas Gallery. Okamura has participated in group shows such as After Hours at Edmonton’s William Mackenzie Centre Gallery, Fresh 2002 at Artspace Gallery in Calgary, and the BP Portrait Awards Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Okamura’s work has great appeal to Hollywood celebrities, and lives in the collections of actors Uma Thurman, Anabella Sciorra, and bandleader of The Roots, Ahmir Questlove Thompson. The artist has won the Alberta College of Art Board of Governors Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Painting, and a Lily Auchincloss Foundation New York Foundation for the Arts Chosen Fellow in Painting.