Junko Iijima

Junko Iijima came from Japan to the United States as a high school exchange student in1987. Fascinated by the diversity of people and culture, she continued her studies in the U.S. and received her BFA in metalsmithing with an art history minor from S.U.N.Y. College at New Paltz, NY, and finished her Master’s degree in metalsmithing at the University of Oregon in Eugene. She now lives in Portland with her husband and two children. Her work deals with the melding of cultural signifiers from the United States and Japan. Having lived in this country for 21 years, Iijima has experienced the two cultures and their people getting closer and closer through the exchange of commodities.

Iijima teaches full-time in the art department at Pacific University, where she is also the director of the Kathrin Cawin Gallery and a member of the Permanent Art Collection Advisory Committee. She participated in the artist residency program at Home Forward’s Stephen Creek Crossing, and has also been involved in several public art selection committees including the Regional Arts and Cultural Council’s Trimet Public Art Advisory for the Green Line and other local public art projects.

Iijima has exhibited her work in group and solo exhibitions locally and nationally including at Jeffery Thomas Fine Art; Contemporary Craft Museum & Gallery; Pushdot Gallery; Northview Gallery in Portland, OR; Bryan Ohno Gallery and the Center for Contemporary Art in Seattle, WA; Archer Gallery in Vancouver, WA; Velvet Da Vinci in San Francisco; the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI; The Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston, MA; and the Art Mission in Binghamton, NY. Her work is included in private and public collections such as the White House, Washington, DC; Kohler Company, Kohler, WI; and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI.

Iijima was an Arts/Industry Foundry resident in 2004, and she returned to the Foundry again in 2016 to continue works inspired by Japanese iron tea kettles.