Tim Okamura Lives His New York Dream

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Tim Okamura, “Keep Ya Head Up,” 2017

oil on canvas, 36" x 24”

When Tim Okamura was a student at the Alberta College of Art and Design, he dreamed about living in New York. “I couldn’t wait to get here,” he says. Okamura was hosting a Calgary radio show about hip hop culture, which was just starting to explode, and was enthused with graffiti. He also liked Rembrandt and Caravaggio and wanted to see their work firsthand at the Met. Okamura was already painting portraits, often of friends, several of whom had already moved to New York. So when the chance came to do a Master’s degree at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, a place that boasts alumni like Joseph Kosuth and Sol LeWitt, he made the leap. That was 26 years ago.

Tim Okamura, “Gold Vein,” 2016

Tim Okamura, “You Heard Right,” 2017

The years since have been good to Okamura. His work has been displayed in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington and he has a letter of commendation from Joe Biden, a former vice-president of the United States. He was on the short list for a commissioned portrait of Queen Elizabeth in 2006 and his work has been selected nine times for the prestigious BP Portrait Award exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Hollywood stars have bought his paintings and he was the inspiration for Uma Thurman’s love interest in the 2005 romantic comedy Prime.

This month, Okamura comes full circle with an exhibition, Begin Transmission, at the the Peter Robertson Gallery in his hometown of Edmonton from May 25 to June 13. Okamura is still painting portraits, and this show features more of his longtime mainstay, gutsy images of women that juxtapose classic realism with the raw energy of urban street culture. 

That subject matter is probably one reason for Okamura’s success. Women of colour are under-represented in art history, often relegated to roles as helpers or victims. The women in Okamura’s paintings are anything but – they come off as strong and savvy, and as he points out, are often incredibly resilient.

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Tim Okamura, “Patch Me Through,” 2017

oil and acrylic on collaged canvas and linen support, 37.5” x 38”

He aims to capture a likeness of the sitter, but says his paintings also offer larger metaphorical meanings. Okamura observes that people sometimes say they feel no immediate connection to his subjects. “But then they spend some time with the work and they do discover that deeper connection … there’s an energy-thing being transferred back, where they find that common ground.”

Another likely reason for Okamura’s success is his personality. He comes across – at least during a quick telephone call from Brooklyn – as a nice guy. He’s polite and helpful – the quintessential Canadian stereotype. But he’s also a go-getter, working hard in his studio and then plugging into the busy New York art scene to network. “I’ve been lucky that I enjoy the social part of it,” he says. “I do have to get out there and meet people and make those contacts.”

His work evolved naturally out of his interests. “I revere good solid draftsmanship and good use of values and light. Thus, I’m still looking to Rembrandt and Caravaggio, as an example, for technical inspiration, but along the way also discovering somebody like Lucian Freud, that worked heavily in impasto and was very direct. I think there are elements of that in there as well because there’s a lot of texture that’s being incorporated into the work.”

Okamura began painting the people he met in New York’s art and music scenes soon after his arrival. “I was just like, let me do your portrait,” he says. “It almost boils down to some kind of cliché. It was inspiration. I was completely inspired to paint people who I hadn’t interacted with before, whose story I thought was absolutely unique, who in some cases overcame some really difficult challenges. In other cases, it was just simply beautiful people, inside and out, and I wanted to capture them in paintings. The initial motivation was very simple, very direct.”

The paintings in his Edmonton show are tied together by his belief in the need for dialogue. “Given the social and political climate, there’s a lot of people that lately have been doing a lot of yelling … and there’s been no real meaningful exchange.”

He has also been thinking about how digital technology has changed the way we reach out to one another. Telephone calls are rare now, even between friends, he muses. That wistfulness is reflected in his use of vintage telegraph keys and old naval signal flags in some paintings. 

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Tim Okamura, “Codes and Signals,” 2017

oil and acrylic on wood panel, collaged book covers, vintage telegraph keys and wire, 36” x 36”

“As much as technology has aided us, it’s also inhibited the conversational aspect to a large extent,” he says. He mentions his recent exchange with one woman. “She made it very clear she’s not a supporter of my work and was kind of ranting and raving on social media about what an awful artist I was,” he says. “I tried to have a conversation with her, tried to open up a dialogue, and it turned into a very one-sided thing of her berating me and being quite nasty. Social media has enabled that to happen.”

Okamura is sensitive to suggestions that his work verges on cultural appropriation but rejects the idea that an artist must have the same background as the people he paints. He makes respectful and dignified images of women of colour, he says, and 99 per cent of his feedback is positive. “I never claim to be an authority on cultural nuances, but certainly do my best to paint the people who pose for me in the best light possible.

“I think this is a time when it’s more important than ever to explore each others’ stories, to investigate identity and culture and all the juxtapositions and nuances, which are very complex in this day and age.” That’s something Okamura knows firsthand. His father is of Japanese ancestry, his mother, British, by way of Newfoundland. He often felt like an outsider growing up in Edmonton. “There was nobody else like me,” he says. And his family, like many others with Japanese roots, has endured racism, including internment during the Second World War.

Okamura believes art should encourage people to be curious. “I think that’s a great role for an artist to play, to get people to examine somebody’s issues and to ask questions, and hopefully, establish a dialogue, at the very least.”

• Click HERE for the 2006 Galleries West profile of Tim Okamura.