The Juneau-Douglas City Museum has been awarded over $11,000 from the Museums Alaska Art Acquisition Fund supported by the Rasmuson Foundation to purchase six pieces of artwork from three Juneau artists; Fumi Matsumoto, Rachael Juzeler and Adam Dimmitt.
The fund was established by the Rasmuson Foundation a decade ago to benefit active collecting and exhibiting institutions and support contemporary Alaskan artists.
The grant funded three sculptural works by Fumi Matsumoto, “Ibara no Michi” (Pathway of Thorns), “Issei/Nisei” (First Generation/Second Generation) and “Gaman” (Endure). These pieces speak to Matsumoto’s family experience of forced incarceration during WWII and loss and protection of cultural identity. These pieces were included in the 2014 Museum exhibit, The Empty Chair: The Forced Removal and Resettlement of Juneau’s Japanese Community.
The grant funded two works by Rachael Juzeler, “Axe no.1” [red line] and “Files” [cut this out]. Living on Douglas Island a stone’s throw away from Juneau and inspired by the Treadwell Hard Rock Mining ruins, Juzeler’s creative palette resides in forgotten and discarded items that she repurposes to create work that challenges function, work ethic, contradiction and nostalgia.
The grant funded the purchase of “And Water” by Adam Dimmitt. A unique emerging artist, in 2013 he built, from scratch, a large robotic metal cutting machine, also known as a CNC Plasma Table that cuts metal with hot plasma.
For more information, contact the museum at 586-3572 or visit: juneau.org/museum.
