Saya Woolfalk facts for kids

Saya Woolfalk (born in 1979 in Gifu City, Japan) is an American artist. She is famous for her art that explores ideas like hybridity (mixing different things), science, and identity. Woolfalk uses science fiction and fantasy to imagine new worlds and different ways of seeing things.

Saya Woolfalk's art is shown by Leslie Tonkonow Artworks & Projects in New York. She has also taught art at places like the Art Institute of Chicago and Parsons School of Design.

Saya Woolfalk's Early Life and Learning

Woolfalk was born in Gifu City, Japan. Her mother is Japanese, and her father is a mix of African American and Caucasian. She grew up in Scarsdale, New York. She calls herself "binational" because she has strong ties to both Japan and the United States. She spent her early childhood in Japan and visited often after moving to the U.S. This background greatly influences her art, making "hybridity" a key theme in her work.

Woolfalk studied at Brown University, earning a degree in Visual Art and Economics in 2001. She then got her master's degree in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004. In 2006, Woolfalk moved to New York to join the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.

Saya Woolfalk's Art Career

Since 2007, Woolfalk has shown her art in many museums. These include the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and the Brooklyn Museum. She also took part in PERFORMA 09, a performance art festival. She worked with her friend Clifford Owens on his show at PS1/MoMA in New York.

Art critics have praised Woolfalk's work. In 2008, Roberta Smith from the New York Times described Woolfalk's "Ethnography of No Place" as a "tour de force." This means it was a very impressive mix of performance, animation, and sculpture.

In 2013, Holland Cotter, another New York Times critic, wrote about Woolfalk's "Empathics." He said these figures, with their "blossom heads," were fantastic. He also noted that a "complex moral thread" runs through her fantasy art.

Woolfalk told AMMO Magazine that she loves creating fictional worlds. She takes parts of the real world and mixes them with fantasy. This makes her worlds feel both familiar and new. She enjoys when her projects start to "make themselves," meaning the story becomes clear.

Woolfalk has received many awards for her art. These include a Fulbright grant for research in Brazil and a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. She also got a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has been an artist-in-residence at places like the Newark Museum and Yaddo. Her solo exhibition, "The Institute of Empathy," was shown at Real Art Ways in Hartford, CT. Her first big solo museum show opened at the Montclair Art Museum in 2012.

Saya Woolfalk's Artworks

Woolfalk wanted to create art that made people think about how different cultures mix. Instead of using her own story, she invented a fictional world. This world is home to the Empathics.

The Empathics

The Empathics are a made-up group of women. They can change their genes and even combine with plants. Through her art, Woolfalk builds the story of these women's lives. She explores the idea of a perfect world where cultures blend together. Woolfalk says she likes to keep the conversation "ambiguous" because she is mixed race. The Empathics were first shown at Woolfalk's solo exhibition at the Montclair Art Museum in 2012.

No Place

No Place is a colorful, imaginary world. It is shown through dance, video, and sculptures. Woolfalk developed this work after studying performance and spiritual practices in Brazil. She compared her artistic methods to the scientific research her husband was doing there. In 2008, Woolfalk and anthropologist Rachel Lears asked friends about their ideas for a perfect utopia. They wove these ideas into the world of No Place.

ChimaTEK: Virtual Chimeric Space

This artwork has been featured in several exhibitions. These include Enter the Mandala at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco in 2014. It was also part of Disguise: Masks & Global African Art at the Seattle Art Museum in 2015 and the Brooklyn Museum in 2016. Woolfalk was inspired by sowei helmet masks from the Sande society in Sierra Leone. These masks were used in rituals by a female-centered community.

Influences on Saya Woolfalk's Art

Woolfalk gets ideas from many different sources. These include Japanese anime and African masks and textiles used in ceremonies. The clothes she designs for her video works often combine these influences. This shows her belief in cultural hybridity.

In an interview, she explained her view on cultural hybridity. She said that cultures don't develop alone. Instead, they build on each other. American culture, for example, is a mix of many different immigrant groups and histories.

Woolfalk's own experience as a "binational" person also shaped her ideas. When she was young, she learned in Japan about how plants and humans are connected. This idea later helped her create the Empathics. In college, she learned about the Kaki Tree project. This project involved a persimmon tree that survived the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki. Saplings from this tree were used to create cultural exchanges. This showed that new, better worlds can come from pain. This experience greatly influenced how Woolfalk wanted to create her future art.

Teaching and Mentoring

Woolfalk began teaching in 2002 as a Teaching Artist for Publicolor in New York City. She also taught at Architreasures and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2006, she became a thesis advisor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She also mentored artists at the New York Foundation for the Arts. Woolfalk was a visiting artist at the University at Buffalo and the University of Hartford. From 2013 to 2018, she was an adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design.

Recognition and Awards

Woolfalk has received many awards for her work. These include the Joan Mitchell MFA fellowship and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) fellowship. She also received the Art Matters grant and the Franklin Furnace Fund Grant for performance art. The Deutsche Bank Fellowship Award is another honor she has received. Woolfalk has been an artist-in-residence at several places. These include the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Newark Museum of Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design.

Personal Life

Saya Woolfalk's mother is Japanese, and her father is biracial (African American and Caucasian). Her background helps her explore new ideas about cultural diversity. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, anthropologist Sean T. Mitchell, and their daughter Aya. Woolfalk also has an art studio in Manhattan.