About the Kimura Gallery
University of Alaska Anchorage
The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), Division
of Performing and Fine Arts (PFA), Department of Fine Arts manages the Kimura and arc Galleries, both of which are located on UAA campus.
Exhibition Mandate
Exhibition programming at the Kimura Gallery focuses on national and international
contemporary artists and artworks. The Kimura acts as a bridge connecting visual art
to the UAA and Anchorage communities by exploring themes, ideas, and issues relevant
to our times. Kimura exhibitions aspire to reflect current developments in art-making,
and in culture at-large, while creating an opportunity for public dialogue regarding
new work, diverse perspectives, and pertinent research. The Kimura Gallery is particularly
committed to destabilizing existing colonial traditions, along with gender and racial
inequities.
Education Mandate
The Kimura Gallery is an integral component of the art program at UAA. Exhibitions
at the Kimura are used to enhance the curriculum of studio art, art history, and general
education courses. They act as a primary research source for students to view artwork
by a rotating selection of international and national artists first-hand. The Kimura
also provides a limited number of hands-on internship opportunities for students interested
in acquiring professional curatorial and exhibition management skills applicable to
a career in the arts. At the end of each Spring term, the Kimura Gallery hosts the
final thesis exhibition projects of the Art Department’s graduating Bachelor of Fine
Arts students.
Namesake
The Kimura Gallery is named after Sam Kimura, Professor Emeritus of Art, 1996, and
Joan Kimura, also a former UAA Professor of Art. Sam Kimura was an Alaska-born master
photographer, and son of one of the first Japanese immigrant families to settle in
Anchorage. Joan’s abstract and figurative paintings and drawings earned her the reputation
as “one of the founding mothers of contemporary arts in Alaska”. Both Sam and Joan
studied art in New York, and their work has been included in several prominent private
and public collections in Alaska and beyond.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we live and work in, and that the University of Alaska Anchorage is situated upon, the traditional lands of the Dena'ina Athabascan people.