In-Transit, Oil and Acrylic on Cavas, 2023
Shingo Yamazaki
California
Visual
Artist in Residence, 2025
↗ www.shinyamazaki.com/
Artist Statement
During the Artist In Residence program, I plan to explore the notion of games/toys as a pastime that parallel my family lineage, comparing the history of their assimilation to my own personal migration from Hawaiʻi to Los Angeles. Paintings initiated at Headlands AIR will leverage imagery sourced from the world of games that have been widely popularized through cultural exchange in Hawaiʻi and the mainland USA. Some examples are Hanafuda/Hwatu cards, Pogs, or Kendama—objects introduced through migration that contribute to the diversity within the local community and enable a lightness in the intersection between cultural threads.
While At Headlands
Shingo Yamazaki (b. Honolulu, Hawai‘i) is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work explores themes of home, memory, and cultural hybridity. Influenced by his Japanese and Korean American heritage and his upbringing in Hawai‘i, he creates layered compositions that merge domestic interiors with natural landscapes, where personal and collective histories intertwine.
His paintings feature veil-like glazes, obscured figures, and translucent layers that reflect the fragmented nature of memory. These shifting surfaces invite viewers into liminal spaces shaped by migration, distance, and longing—a state of “in-betweenness” that defines both place and identity.
By blending familiar motifs with abstracted forms, Yamazaki reconstructs plausible histories rooted in emotion, memory, and wishful thinking. His work embraces ambiguity, offering a quiet acceptance of the unknown and honoring the fluid, evolving nature of selfhood.
