STATEMENT:
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I am a multidisciplinary artist based between Iowa and Los Angeles. My work draws on the visual language of Northern Renaissance painting, mythological folklore, and religious imagery, using historically resonant materials to explore the relationship between place, culture, and storytelling.
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My imagery grows from personal history, travel, and lived experience. As a descendant of European pioneers and the parent of a Japanese American daughter, I am interested in the ways cultures, migrations, and histories intersect. The work often considers the meeting of East and West and reflects on how the legacies of early modernity, exploration, trade, and expansion, continue to shape contemporary American identity.
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Material is central to my process. I work on wood panels sourced from Bulgarian forests once used by fifteenth-century artists, draw with silverpoint, and build surfaces with layers of egg tempera. Pigments gathered from historically charged sites and finishes made from beeswax and natural resins create paintings that physically carry traces of the places and histories they reference.
Through these methods, painting becomes a contemplative practice—one that bridges ancient traditions and present-day questions about memory, migration, and cultural inheritance.
​USA b.1973
Lives and Works in both Los Angeles and Dubuque, IA
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EE Kono’s Artwork explores, history; both real and imagined. Her vibrant egg tempura paintings and large monochromatic oil and ink drawings create a personal mythology that incorporates symbolic flora, fauna, and figures. A world traveler, Kono’s practice is specifically interested in place; how place holds stories through materials; how the land influences the lives that pass through it; and how, over time, those lives influence the future. Kono favors a slow meditative process using materials and imagery selected for their layered significance. Fascinated by the interaction of diverse cultures, her work includes art historical references from both Europe and Asia with animistic elements universal to traditional arts.​​
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A self-taught painter, Kono studied art history at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA) and the University of Hull (Kingston Upon Hull, England). She has also studied traditional egg tempera techniques under the guidance of artist Koo Schadler. Kono’s work has been exhibited internationally and in notable venues, including solo exhibits at the Dubuque Museum of Art, La Luz de Jesus (Los Angeles, CA), and Gallery 825 (Los Angeles) As well as group exhibits at Riverside Art Museum (Riverside, California), FORMah (NYC) Modern Eden (San Francisco, CA), Beinart Gallery, (Melbourne Australia). Her paintings have been seen in Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, American Art Collector, Arts to Hearts Magazine, and Juxtapoz magazine. Additionally, she is an award-winning author and illustrator with over a dozen books published by major trade houses. Her book illustrations are in the collection of the Mazza Museum (Findley, OH)
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