Roger Shimomura’s paintings, prints, and theatre pieces address sociopolitical issues of ethnicity. He was born in Seattle, Washington and spent two early years of his childhood in Minidoka the confinement site in Idaho.
Shimomura was a distinguished military graduate from the University of Washington, Seattle and served as a field artillery officer with the First Cavalry Division in Korea. In 1967 he separated from the Army at the rank of Captain and received his M.F.A. from Syracuse University, New York. He has had over 150 solo exhibitions of paintings and prints, as well as presented his experimental theater pieces at a variety of venues. He is the recipient of more than 30 grants, of which 4 are National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in Painting and Performance Art. Shimomura has been a visiting artist and lectured on his work at more than 200 universities, art schools, and museums across the country. In 2016 the artist was the featured guest on the Day of Rembrance at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institute. Shimomura began teaching at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS in 1969. In 2004 he retired from teaching and started the Shimomura Faculty Research Support Fund, an endowment to foster faculty research in the Department of Art.
Shimomura is in the permanent collections of over 100 museums nationwide including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of American Art, National Portrait Gallery & American Art Museum, Smithsonian. His personal papers and letters are being collected by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. He is represented by Flomenhaft Gallery, New York City and Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle.