Bryce Kanbara is a visual artist, curator and proprietor of you me gallery in Hamilton, Ontario. He is a founding member and first administrator of Hamilton Artists Inc.; curatorial positions at the Burlington Art Centre, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant, and curator/chair of the Arts Committee at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto. He was Executive Director of the Toronto Chapter of the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC), National Executive Member of the NAJC and Chair of the NAJC Endowment Fund Committee. He was the Visual Arts, Crafts & Design Officer for the Ontario Arts Council; Co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre; Governing Council member for the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion.
Kanbara’s work as a visual artist/curator, and his involvement in community art and public art projects are discrete activities that merge into the mainstream of his art practice. Kanbara is also the proprietor of a storefront gallery (opened 2003) which he views as an intervention project that addresses the divide between art and the general public.
In my personal work (painting, sculpture, printmaking), I like when I can combine two or more of the following: Japanese Canadian-ness, abstract expressionism, Hamilton, literature, a sense of communality. The community projects (which have included members of Muslim, Hindu, Aboriginal, Japanese Canadian communities) incorporate the voices and talents of others, which seems antithetical to the creation of my personal work, yet equally represent what I do.
