An artist who describes his work as intuitive and stylistic came to Wayne State College on Thursday to share his artwork and art experience with young artists in the making.

Jave Yoshimoto is a part of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship and is the coordinator of foundations at
UNO. He earned his bachelor’s degree at UC Santa Barbara and a post-baccalaureate certificate in painting and drawing, as well as a master’s in Art and Art Therapy, at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. He has traveled to many places and has had many art shows.

“Before I went to school I made works like this, which is kind of like an intuitive, more aesthetic
based stylistic work,” Yoshimoto said about his piece called Ahtkluss Saxcess.

He said some of his artwork shows his confusion about who he is as a person, with his Chinese and Japanese background.

“When I went to undergrad, I started painting with found objects,” Yoshimoto said. “I used to go dumpster diving.”

He said that he wanted to get objects to help tell a story, and he would paint on some of those objects to create a narrative for who the owner could have been. He was in search of a way to make work less about himself, he said.

“The more I learned, the more I wanted to do something about healing,” he said.

Yoshimoto said that when he went to graduate school, he studied art therapy after working for a year at a residential facility for people with mental disabilities.

“I don’t sell my work, period,” said Yoshimoto.

He said he doesn’t want to be a sellout and exploit the people he photographs.

“I really love the compassion behind his artwork and the value in the color schemes that he uses in a way to approach natural disasters,” said Audrey Fisher, a freshman graphic design major.

She said he shows disasters the way they really happen, better than some news stations do.

Most of all she said she thinks Yoshimoto’s not selling his artwork shows compassion and that he is keeping true to what he believes in.