Super Buddahead

Now retired, Roger Shimomura spent his career as a professor at the University of Kansas. As a painter, printmaker, and performance artist, he continues to focus his artwork on the experiences of Asian Americans and the obstacles they face. When Shimomura was a small child during World War II, he and his family (all American citizens of Japanese descent) were relocated from their home in Seattle to a Japanese American internment camp in Idaho. His work often addresses that experience, as well as the racist stereotypes used to characterize Asian Americans.
Shimomura creates self-portraits as a way to investigate his own identity vis-à-vis popular imagery. Here, he depicts himself as Superman, flying through the air. Noting that his image interrogates “whether Superman must be Caucasian to be complete,” he also explains that the term "buddhahead" was a World War II term used by the Japanese American soldiers among themselves.”