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Laura Kina was born in Riverside, CA in 1973 to a Okinawan father from Hawai’i and a Spanish/Basque/Anglo mother. She was then raised in Poulsobo, WA a small Norwegian town in the Pacific Northwest. Kina's work is shown both nationally and internationally. She is currently living and working in Chicago, IL at De Paul University. Her resume also includes being the midwest coordinator for the Diasporic Asian Arts Network; serving on the board of the Japanese American Service Committee; advisory board member of MAVIN in Seattle; founding member of the Critical Mixed Race Studies biennial conference; founding member and consulting editor of the Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies; as well as a co-editor and co-curator for many other exhibits. Kina was recently selected as one of the 2012 “Top 100 Executives & Emerging Leaders Under 50”.

Laura Kina (born 1973) is an artist, academic and important contributor to the emergent field of Critical Mixed Race Studies. Kina was born in Riverside, CA. to an Okinawa father from Hawaii and a Spanish/Basque/Anglo mother. She was raised in Poulsbo, WA., which is a small Norwegian town in the Pacific Northwest. She moved to Chicago, IL. in 1991 to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied with Michiko Itatani and Ray Yoshida, earning her B.F.A. in 1994. In 2001, Kina received her M.F.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago where she studied under noted painters Kerry James Marshall and Phyllis Bramson.

Drawing inspiration from popular culture, art history, textile design, historic photographs and personal and family photos, her works focus on the fluidity of cultural difference and the slipperiness of identity. Asian American history and mixed race representations are subjects that run through her work. Colorful pattern fields combined with figurative elements and subtle narratives characterize her paintings. Kina is mixed race Asian American. On her father’s side, she is a descendant of Okinawan sugar cane plantation workers from Piihonua on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Her maternal grandmother was Spanish/Basque from Vallejo, CA. and her maternal grandfather was French, English, Irish, and Dutch from Waco, TX.

Laura Kina is Associate Professor of Art, Media, & Design at DePaul University, Vincent DePaul Distinguished Professor, and Director of Asian American Studies. She helped found DePaul’s Asian American Studies program in 2005. Her work is represented by Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts in Miami, FL. She currently lives and works in Chicago, IL.

Kina’s work was included in The New Authentics: Artists of the Post-Jewish Generation at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, Chicago, IL in 2007-2008 and the Rose Art Museum in Waltham, MA in 2008.