Justin Baldwin

On The Train, July 27, 2009, Astoria, NY (photo taken by Adam Kuban)

I first started making art as a half-Japanese toddler living in Kansas.  I think I was about three years old when I first realized my love of drawing.  In 70’s & 80’s Kansas, there was no Asian American community, making me an absolute minority.  I grew up being asked if I was Chinese, Mexican, or Native American, but never if I was Japanese.  Although my mother, who is from Sapporo, provided me with a lot of exposure to various aspects of Japanese culture, the absence of any Asian American community meant that such interests were kept at home, separate from my life trying to fit in among the mostly Caucasian community around me.

As a student at the University of Kansas in the 90’s I encountered Roger Shimomura, who was the first person in Kansas to really encourage me to embrace the Japanese half of my heritage.  Around the same time, I was also studying under Robert Brawley and Robert Price, two other very important influences.  Robert Brawley’s vast knowledge and passion for art and drawing  taught me a lot as a student and continue to do so to this day, while Robert Price’s deeply spiritual / philosophical relationship with his art and life have made a huge difference in  how and what I do with my own art and life.   Shortly after I began working with these professors, I took my first trip to Japan.  These experiences completely changed my perception of my heritage, my art, and myself and continue to inform how I live, what I do, and what I make.

After graduating with a BFA in painting, I moved to Japan as a JET program participant, changing from an absolute minority in Kansas to an even more absolute minority in the rice fields of rural Kagawa-ken.  Instead of being a half-Japanese perceived as vaguely Chinese / Mexican / Native American who may or may not have a gift for math, science, and martial arts by the majority of the Caucasian Kansans around me, I became 100% Gaijin in the eyes of the Japanese inaka mono around me, with all the associated positive and negative stereotypical assumptions.  More often than not, Japanese people thought I was joking or lying when I told them that I was half-Japanese. Even those who acknowledged my mixed ethnicity still considered me a Gaijin first and foremost.

The word “foreigner” in Japanese is “Gaikokujin,” which combines the Kanji characters for “outside,” “country,” and “person.” “Gaijin” is a shortened version that excludes the central “country” character, translating literally to “outside person” or “outsider.”   Although being labeled an outsider by those around me was nothing new, it was in a new context that made it clear that I was a cultural orphan of sorts, always walking the margins between my cultural origins. Somehow by going straight to the source in my quest for my mother’s cultural heritage I managed to be even more absolutely excluded. It was therefore only natural to explore this situation by making what I termed “Gaijin Art.”

While in Japan, I learned to appropriate universal visual language from various points of origin in conjunction with more culturally specific information to pose questions, make observations, and even jokes about multicultural matters, cross-cultural communication, belief systems, and values.  “Gaijin Art” ranged from hand-made collage to drawing, sculpture, collaborative projects, and interactive projects, evolving each time I showed.

I moved to NYC in 2006, for the first time attaining a kind of invisibility unavailable to absolute minorities in Kansas and rural Japan.  At the same time, my exposure to diverse cultures, languages, and people expanded exponentially.  This naturally led to a greater curiosity about what was around me, which involved trying to acquire a greater visual vocabulary with all of New York City teaching me.  The subway became both a cultural classroom and mobile studio, as long commutes, limited space, and limited resources led to daily subway drawing.

Somehow along the way I began doing drawings of what I termed “Urban Tribal Salarymen” that combined elements of corporate and tribal cultures, incorporating various international elements while maintaining strong Japanese and American reference points.  This eventually became a long-term project that will culminate in a wall-sized organization chart for a fictional corporation made up of these Salarymen portraits.

I continue to make sculptures and larger drawings at Asianaut HQ (my home studio in Astoria, Queens) when not drawing on subway commutes to and from my job as a professional Gaijin at a Japanese corporation.  I realize now, looking back at the Gaijin Art, as well as the subway and studio art that I’m working on that it’s all part of a quest of sorts, trying to find a cultural home.  The Gaijin Art may be finished, but the journey continues.

Justin Baldwin

November 29th, 2010

New  York, NY