“Untitled I (female)” color screen print, 27.25 x 34.75 inches (69.2 x 88.2 cm), 2003 
Sacrifice #2: It Has to Last (after Yoshitoshi’s “Drowsy: the appearance of a harlot of the Meiji era”), enamel, acrylic and paper on panel, 52 x 38 in. (132 x 96.5 cm), 2007 
“The Happened Stances of Jupiter and Io,” acrylic, ink, krink and graphite on wood panel, 60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm), 2013 
Untitled (after Kikugawa Eizan’s “Furyu nana komachi” [The Modern Seven Komashi]), acrylic and paper on panel 12 x 14 5/8 in. (30.5 x 37.1 cm), 2007 
“Live !” acrylic, ink and gold leaf on wood panel, 72 × 60 inches (183 × 152 cm), 2013
Geishas rock afros, corn rolls and dreadlocks. They fashionably freeze with the same intensity that break dancers pose on the floor, but artist Iona Rozeal Brown’s acrylic painted Asiatic people are in brown face, and they’re a clashing of sorts. Comic book motifs, Ukiyo-e prints, Kabuki theater, Noh, Byzantine religious painting, voguing and most notably hip-hop, mix together like two turntables playing tug of war with the cross fader. If Brown was a DJ (which apparently she is), she’d be taking viewers on a journey all over space and back-back–forth-and-forth through time. Her blending is flawless. Victory.
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