Review: What does ‘the Asian woman’ look like? Artist explores identity with 300 self-portraits

Tomoko Sawada has photographed herself relentlessly, dressing up Cindy-Sherman-style as schoolgirls, twins, brides or other characters since the mid-1990s. Her new work at Rosegallery, “Facial Signature,” consists of 300 self-portraits that are remarkable for how Sawada achieves variation within very narrow parameters: the American notion of “the Asian woman.”

“Facial Signature” was inspired by a residency in New York, where the Japanese artist was often mistaken for Korean, Chinese or other ethnicities. Blanketing two walls of the gallery, the portraits are not entirely transformative; they are all clearly Sawada. But they are all different -- to a point.

Hairstyles include orange and black, short and long, wavy and straight, but there is nothing extreme: no mohawks, shaved heads or dreads. The makeup ranges from minimal to glamorous, but is entirely conventional. It seems Sawada is concerned not with what Asian women actually look like, but with exploration of the variations that the category “Asian woman” will bear.

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It will bear quite a lot, it seems. The piece, in its sheer size, argues for individuality within a limited notion of Asian femininity. Then again, perhaps it is Sawada’s recurring visage that reinforces that limit. The repetition leads to a much less sanguine conclusion that despite our personal styling, to America, Asian women all still look alike.

Rosegallery, 2525 Michigan Ave., G-5, Santa Monica, (310) 264-8440, through April 9. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.rosegallery.net

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