Artist
Hiro Yamagata was born in Shiga, Japan on June 30,
1948. He was first interested in painting in elementary
school and took a special art class every day after
school and through high school with his art teacher,
a Japanese-style painter. After his graduation, he
went to Tokyo and had part-time jobs in the advertisement
field, where his talent was recognized. In 1972, Hiro
began attending L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Paris and
began to live his life through painting.
Internationally known among commercial-art enthusiasts
for his pop-inspired faunal and floral imagery, Yamagata
is best known in the US as the poster designer for
the 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympic Committees. He's
also designed commemorative works for the Air and Space
Bicentennial, the US Constitution's Bicentennial, the
Centennial Celebration of the Eiffel Tower, the Bicentennial
of the French Revolution - and painted Ronald Reagan's
presidential portrait. In 1988, Hiro was commissioned
by President Ronald Reagan to do a painting as part
of the one hundred year anniversary celebration of
the Statue of Liberty.
In the recent past, Yamagata has explored a completely
different aspect of art. In 1997-98, he set out to create "Element," a
six-part series of environmental installations using
theater lights, holographic effects and lasers. Yamagata's
desire was to overwhelm the senses by transforming the "white
cube" of the gallery into a spatially infinite site
where the micro merges with the macro and the limits
of the real are expended. |
