Intro by Alan Chong Lau:
The voice sounds faint and tentative. It’s a friend, Robert Dozono calling from Portland. I had received an email from his daughter earlier asking for my phone number as her father was dealing with cancer and wanted to reach out and say goodbye. It was typical of this man who was a sensitive, considerate soul who never wanted to leave any loose ends. He wanted to thank me for our correspondence about art, life, poetry and memories of Japan. He grew up in Japan up until the age of 13 when he moved with his father to Portland to join his mother. I met him when I visited another Portland artist friend Kanetaka Ikeda on the occasion of his art exhibit at Blackfish Gallery, an arts cooperative and one of the oldest galleries in the city.
Robert Dozono was a respected name in the Portland arts community. He was a long-time faculty member at Portland Community College, mentoring many students with instruction on drawing and painting the human figure. He was also a pivotal member of Blackfish Gallery.
Dozono cared deeply about our environment. “The natural environment is very important to me. All these years I have reused objects that one cannot recycle – plastic items without numbers, wiper blades, rubber bands, toothpaste tubes, hairdryers, etc. – into my work…I attempt to foreground what we are doing to our natural resources by using a canvas layered with what is normally cast aside.” His friend and fellow artist Kanetaka Ikeda remembers him fondly in the essay below.
In remembrance of Robert Dozono, by Kanetaka Ikeda
“Kane, watch your head”, warned Bob as I held onto the ladder stabilizing it so Bob won’t fall. Bob was warning me to keep an eye out for a falling hammer, lever, or nails. It was year 2022, and we were installing Robert Dozono’s 135 by130 inches, three panel, magnum opus, “No Farm- No Food- Take Back America- Upper Clackamas #11” for what turned out to be the last time at this ninth in Glisan street space.
Bob began this piece back in 2006, a couple years before I returned to Portland from a 20 year stay in Japan. Later in 2008 I rejoined Blackfish. Started as a composition of bonded, mostly plastic garbage, Bob would paint over a scene of Upper Clackamas river over it. Every couple years, in his exhibition at this same Blackfish space, Bob would display the work in various stages of development. As work progressed, slowly an identifiable image of water, rocks and trees appeared. Standing next to it or near it, you could see random strokes of painted color on a collage of garbage. From a distance you could see the realistic images of river and forest. So from 2008 to 2022, I played the role of ladder boy saving Bob from any fall. “Why won’t Bob just concentrate on that darn thing and finish it”, I impatiently wondered each time we hung it, but that’s Bob. He had his pace- an Aesopian tortoise pace. Well, after Bob savored over the piece for 16years he finally finished it. I must grudgingly admit, it’s a tour de force. I couldn’t help but silently go ‘wow’ and bow ‘otsukaresamadeshita’. The latter, a Japanese phrase often used to greet someone positively after completion of hard work- a long hard work.
An environmentalist of sorts, Bob fished, camped and grew veggies and even made his own compost. Bob use to tell me he only had a garbage pickup once a year. Apparently, he must have saved the rest for his art or hid them in his closets. Along with esthetic appreciation, Bob’s work is to me an awareness, a warning, and a commentary on environmental issues. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are blessed with clean air, clean water, and acres and acres of green forest. These must be protected, Bob’s paintings seem to say.
Over the years, I believe the artist owned Blackfish gallery has been a noted, cultural presence in Portland. With a background that includes carpentry and banking and with incomparable energy and enthusiasm, Bob has contributed to the existence and flourishing of Blackfish in many ways. Though not a founding member, appreciation for Bob’s considerable contribution was specially honored: he was invited by founders to join them for the Blackfish 45th anniversary Founding members exhibition.
A generous person, Robert Dozono will be truly missed by many recipients of his generosity. This includes myself for whom Bob was a great guy and the greatest appreciator of my work.
