Obsessive Eyes: Artist Talk by Mayumi Lake

Join artist Mayumi Lake for an intimate artist talk exploring Unison: Obsessive Eyes, her ongoing body of work spanning photography, sculpture, and installation. Lake will discuss the conceptual roots of Unison, from the Japanese aesthetic of mono no aware to the mythic Hōsōge flowers that symbolize hope amid chaos, and how these ideas resonate with our contemporary moment.

Through a deep dive into her process—collecting, scanning, archiving, and meticulously reconstructing antique girls’ kimonos alongside found objects—Lake will reflect on obsession as a form of care, preservation, and cultural transmission. She will also speak about navigating cultural hybridity, memory, and inheritance, and how relentless attention can serve as a quiet yet powerful act of resistance against forgetting.

The talk will conclude with a Q&A, inviting audiences to engage directly with the artist’s ideas, materials, and methods.

All are welcome.

Mayumi Lake (b.Osaka)  is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose work explores the ideas of time, memory, and floating between the real and imaginary. With a foundation in photography, she integrates digital images of nature and Japanese textiles into her artworks to expand narrative and form conceptual layers. Lake’s artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally including Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, Asia Society, Art in General, and Artists Space in New York; Chicago Artists Coalition and Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago; Elmhurst Art Museum in Elmhurst, Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City; the Setouchi Triennale in Takamatsu;  Fotografie Forum International in Frankfurt; Galleria PaciArte in Brescia; FOTOAMERICA in Santiago. Her work is included in the permanent collections of institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Asia Society. 

Her public artwork commissions include the City of Chicago/O’Hare Airport, Chicago Transit Authority, and  McCormick Place. She has published two monographs, Poo-Chi and Ex Post