About the Asian American Women Artists Association

AAWAA works to educate the broader arts community about the unique cultural contributions of its members. Much of the impetus for founding the organization was to redress the invisibility of Asian American women artists in mainstream galleries, museums, publications and art educational curricula.

To rectify this lack of representation, AAWAA orchestrated a variety of critically acclaimed member exhibitions, and presented slide lectures as well as panel discussions in numerous art and educational institutions. These venues have included the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, The M.H. De Young Museum, Headlands Center for the Arts, Richmond Arts Center, UC Berkeley, the California College of Arts and Crafts, S.F. State, Mills College and UC Santa Cruz--just to name a few.

By 1995 AAWAA's reputation as an important regional force inspired the California Arts Council to award the organization moneys to produce an educational slide packet featuring artwork by women whose ethnicities include Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian and Pacific Islander nations.

Two years later, AAWAA received a second California Arts Council Grant to create a seminal exhibition catalogue entitled, "Of Our Own Voice: Asian American Women Artists Association." In 2001, AAWAA received a grant to forge ahead with an Anthology of Asian American Women Artists' visual and literary art to be released in 2006. Through such efforts, dozens of women artists have forged professional relationships not only among themselves, but also with other critics, art historians, museum curators, art collectors and diverse audiences on a local and national level.

Finely, AAWAA has been actively reshaping The Fine Art aesthetic into a more overtly multicultural terrain--and doing so at a critical juncture in our country's history.