Riverside Art Center, Freeark Gallery
32 East Quincy Road, Riverside, IL 60546
The Riverside Arts Center is pleased to present Over the Rainbow, One More Time, a solo exhibition of paintings and mixed media art by Laura Kina in our Freeark Gallery, curated by Gallery Director, Joanne Aono.
Opening Reception: Sunday, March 26, 2023, 3:00-6:00 PM
Afterwards, join us for a private happy hour across the street at the Quincy Street Distillery.
Exhibition Dates: March 26 – May 6, 2023
On View: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 22, 2023, 2:00 PM
Exhibition Catalogue: Available for purchase at the gallery and online
Over the Rainbow, One More Time is about starting over. It’s about grief and life in the after. Conceived during the Covid-19 pandemic, in the wake of surviving breast cancer, the end of a 25-year-long marriage, and coming out as queer, Laura Kina’s art traces her journey and memories through trauma into wellness and the unknown. The exhibition takes its title from a throwaway phrase her Zumba instructor Michiko shouted in class one day as she waved her arms in a large arch as the class jumped in unison from side to side while listening to Iz Kamakawiwoʻole’s version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Laura Kina is a queer mixed-race Okinawan American artist and scholar. She received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MFA in Studio Art from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Kina has exhibited her paintings and mixed-media art nationally and internationally in galleries and museums including the Chicago Cultural Center, India Habitat Centre, India International Centre, Japanese American National Museum, Okinawa Prefectural Art Museum, Rose Art Museum, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Spertus Museum, and the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience. Kina is an Art Matters Foundation Grantee, and through 3Arts – 3AMP Mentorship artist, a Make a Wave artist, Joan Mitchell Center Fellow, 3AP Project awardee, and Ragdale Fellow.
Laura Kina is a Vincent de Paul Professor at The Art School at DePaul University; curator for the Virtual Asian American Art Museum; a co-founder of the Critical Mixed Studies conference, journal, and association; visual art section editor for Bridge; and serves as a series editor for The University of Washington Press for the Critical Ethnic Studies and Visual Culture book series. She co-edited War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art and Queering Contemporary Asian American Art. Kina illustrated an award winning children’s book, Okinawan Princess: Da Legend of Hajichi Tattoos.
