ARTIST'S STATEMENT
Yumiko GloVer
Yumiko Glover’s artwork draws inspiration from her real-life experiences growing up in Hiroshima, Japan. She observes its society and culture as an artist living in the United States. In her current body of work entitled: Love, Peace, Dreams, and Bombs, Glover depicts youthful figures juxtaposed with elements associated to war, history, and technology.
In July 2014, the Japanese Government approved a reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. This war-renouncing article originally prohibited Japan from ever again participating in wars of aggression. However, this recent change granted increased power to Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. Glover asserts her objection against the government’s decision as well as their aim of exerting influence on younger generations; their recruitment efforts romanticize the notions of war, with cute and sexy characters and idols as propagandistic images.
Glover reflects upon these social issues, as well as on the patriarchal attitudes which persist in contemporary Japan today. Understanding these issues as drivers behind the current rapid population decline in Japan, she suggests this to be the nation’s true security crisis – unlike possible aggression from other nations.
In her depictions of Japan’s historical and societal underpinnings, Glover presents the irony between war romanticized versus actualized while simultaneously elucidating the intergenerational ideology gaps in today’s Japan.
In July 2014, the Japanese Government approved a reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. This war-renouncing article originally prohibited Japan from ever again participating in wars of aggression. However, this recent change granted increased power to Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. Glover asserts her objection against the government’s decision as well as their aim of exerting influence on younger generations; their recruitment efforts romanticize the notions of war, with cute and sexy characters and idols as propagandistic images.
Glover reflects upon these social issues, as well as on the patriarchal attitudes which persist in contemporary Japan today. Understanding these issues as drivers behind the current rapid population decline in Japan, she suggests this to be the nation’s true security crisis – unlike possible aggression from other nations.
In her depictions of Japan’s historical and societal underpinnings, Glover presents the irony between war romanticized versus actualized while simultaneously elucidating the intergenerational ideology gaps in today’s Japan.
© 2017 Love, Peace, Dreams, and Bombs.