Ayomi Yoshida

Ayomi Yoshida, born in Tokyo in 1958, is a third-generation member of Japan's most distinguished printmaking dynasty. Her grandfather Hiroshi Yoshida was a master of the shin-hanga style, her grandmother Fujio was a noted printmaker, and both her parents — father Hodaka and mother Chizuko — were accomplished modern printmakers.

Yoshida studied art at Wako University in Tokyo, and in 1979 began making silkscreen prints at the Mendocino Art Center in California. She developed a distinctive visual language based on the repetitive use of hand-carved ovals, using a scooped chisel to carve hundreds of identically-sized ovals into plywood surfaces arranged in precise rows covering the entire print area. She won her first award for a woodblock print at the Sunshine Print Grand Prix exhibition in 1980.

In later years, Yoshida evolved from traditional printmaking into large-scale, room-sized installations incorporating woodchips and prints to achieve dramatic transformations of space. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the British Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Freer/Sackler Gallery, and the Portland Art Museum.