Jave Gakumei Yoshimoto is an artist and educator of multi-cultural background. He was born in Japan to Chinese parents and immigrated to California at a young age. He believes in creating art works that are socially conscious and true to his authentic self. Yoshimoto has received his Bachelors of Art from University of California Santa Barbara in Studio Art, his Post-baccalaureate Certificate in Painting and Drawing and Masters of Art in Art Therapy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his Masters of Fine Arts in Painting at Syracuse University.
He is a recipient of the 2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painter’s and Sculptor’s grant, which he used to travel to Nepal and Lesvos Island in Greece to research on the topics on human crisis, survival and resilience. Yoshimoto has been an artist-in-residence in various residencies across the United States, including his recent completion of 2 years at Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans in the summer of 2019. Yoshimoto is currently a foundations coordinator at University of Nebraska at Omaha.