E.E. Kono

Region: Midwest

 My practice explores history both real and imagined. I use geographically and historically relevant materials to explore the relationship between place, culture, and storytelling.

I am deeply interested in the connections between diverse cultures and disparate times; specifically, the intersection between East and West and how the legacies of early modernity continue to shape contemporary American society.

I paint primarily in egg tempera, an ancient medium made by combining egg yolk with powdered pigments sourced from places as diverse as Mount Vesuvius and 19th Century factory ruins. Egg tempera is a technique closely associated with the transition between medieval and renaissance Europe—a period that parallels our own—when the introduction of new technologies induced rapid societal transformation.