Artist in Residence Sayako Hiroi

Our introduction to our 2025/26 class of artists-in-residence continues with Sayako Hiroi. Sayako is a Japanese visual artist based in Boston, working across painting and traditional kintsugi, the practice of repairing broken pottery with gold. Her practice responds to silence and erasure, and to the unseen traces of presence, drawing from feminist ethics and Japanese visual archives. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and a BA in Ethics from Keio University in Tokyo, and has been an artist-in-residence at institutions including the Vermont Studio Center.

After arriving at The Umbrella in September, Sayako took a moment to reflect on how her past work, current portfolio, and the beginning of the residency in Concord might lead to new opportunities in 2025-2026.

What's your earliest or most treasured memory of making art?
One of my earliest memories is from a family trip in childhood. We watched a great firework display called Starmine in a field surrounded by rice paddies. Later I painted it: tall grasses in the dark foreground with a burst of light across the sky. That painting received a small prize, but what stayed with me was not the award itself. It was the feeling that something fleeting and unspeakable—the light disappearing into the night—could be held on paper. That moment shaped my sense that art can carry what words cannot.

What most excites you about your current projects or portfolio?
I am working on a new series about intimacy within interracial relationships. It feels very different from my previous abstract work critiquing Orientalism, because now I use more figurative imagery and softer colors. Even though I once spoke about painting on cloth as a possible direction, my focus has shifted. Still, the core is the same: responding to the gaze of others and breaking down binaries. I believe this new work matters, especially in our current world where so many divisions and binaries continue to tear people apart. For me, painting is not about fixing those fractures, but about staying with them—questioning through color and line, and practicing presence without turning away.

Who do you most admire who is currently working in your field?
It is hard to choose, because I admire many artists for different reasons. Joan Mitchell’s sense of movement and balance has long inspired me. Cecily Brown’s practice shows me how figuration can dissolve into abstraction and still hold power. Edvard Munch teaches how a single painting can contain narrative, emotion, and a trace of melancholy within its space. Christina Quarles expands what abstract figuration can be through dynamic, free, yet technically precise forms that feel utterly unique. Among more recent painters, Florin Kompatscher and Jade Fadojutimi expand color and rhythm in ways that feel urgent and alive. What they share is a willingness to push painting beyond its limits, which encourages me to take risks in my own practice.

What are you most looking forward to experiencing or accomplishing during your time as an Umbrella artist-in-residence?
I have already met many wonderful studio artists at the Umbrella. The community is warm, welcoming, and enthusiastic, and I am eager to keep learning through these exchanges. I also hope to discover how what I have studied and what I see as my strengths can be transformed into something of value here, in an organization so deeply rooted in its place. I am also looking forward to having the time and space to let questions unfold, to experiment, and to allow unexpected directions to emerge.

What's your philosophy as a teacher of and/or ambassador for your art form?
For me, teaching is not about providing fixed answers, because in art there is rarely one. I want to create a space of sharing rather than one-way instruction, a place where voices and directions are noticed, lifted, and explored. My role is to help nurture individual strengths and interests, while also engaging in mutual exchange. What I value most is attentiveness—the willingness to listen, to hold open space, and to support growth without imposing a single path.