The Universal Language of Hiroyuki Hamada

Yuan Liu '09, who graduated this spring as a studio art and English literature double major, produced this short film about sculptor Hiroyuki Hamada's recent exhibition at the List Gallery on campus. Yiu served as the Gallery's intern her senior year. Now, as a Philly Fellow, she is working with the Philadelphia Young Playwrights as a marketing and communications coordinator. Although many of his forms suggest weathered buoys and other nautical forms, Hamada takes more inspiration from music than literal sources in the everyday world. Hamada moved from his native Tokyo to West Virginia at the age of 18, when his father took a job in the steel industry. Entering college, his struggle to communicate in English and to comprehend his newfound minority status catalyzed his profound response to the abstract fundamentals of drawing and sculpture - the universal language of geometry and design. He went on to receive his MFA from the University of Maryland and was subsequently awarded two residencies from the Edward Albee Foundation. His List Gallery show was his first in the Greater Philadelphia region.