Yoko Kubrick: Rethinking Classical Sculpture
Yoko Kubrick is an American sculptor of Japanese and Czech heritage. She grew up in Guam, Hawaii, California and the Czech Republic. Yoko has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from San Jose State University, and an M.A. in Psychology and Art Therapy from Notre Dame de Namur University. This month, Yoko was the topic of a New York Times article which dove into her process and conceptual practice.
Yoko was trained in a classical atelier setting where she worked as a studio assistant for a San Francisco sculptor. She later attended graduate school to study Art Therapy and worked in a psychiatric hospital as an Art Therapist. This experience piqued her interest in the psychological processes of art making and the collective unconscious.
Yoko’s sculptures explore the aesthetic perceptions of forms found in nature, and explore the emotional qualities of shapes, which she calls “the emotive language of form.”
Plant life, water movement and land formations inform her visual vocabulary. She expresses her internal world by breathing life into materials using the poetry of line, light, form and shadow.
Her pieces articulate the drama of human existence and our search for meaning in everyday life. Yoko explores allegories informed by classical mythology. Her use of marble alludes to the sculptural practices of antiquity.
She creates small scale and monumental sculpture in bronze, marble, and other metals and stones, which she loves for their timeless and noble qualities.