By Noma Faingold

San Francisco artist and arts educator Kenneth Sakatani, 77, who has been retired for a while, considers himself a “professional part-timer.” He has other interests. Yet, those interests, such as nature and his Japanese heritage, permeate his work.

Sakatani, along with 640 other Bay Area artists, attended “artist day” at the de Young Museum, a reception staged a few days prior to the Sept. 30 opening of the de Young Open, a community-based art exhibition consisting of 883 artworks, displayed salon style from floor-to-ceiling by artists from nine Bay Area counties.

Sakatani’s powerful piece in the show is titled “Closed Till Further Notice.” The 24-inch by 18-inch mixed media work confronts how Japanese internment and discrimination during World War II affected life in San Francisco, including at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. A red pagoda looms in the background, surrounded by a greenish/yellow hue. Jarring barbed wire imagery in the foreground is all the viewer needs to come to a dark conclusion.

The work draws attention to the significant contributions of landscape designer Makoto Hagiwara and his family, who managed the Japanese Tea Garden during the decades following its inauguration in 1894. In 1942, Hagiwara’s daughter, Takano, and her children were imprisoned in an internment camp for the duration of WW II and were prevented from returning to their home in the Tea Garden.

Sakatani’s process involved taking a photograph, digitizing it on a canvas, layering with acrylic paint and creating a minimalist collage. “I’m intrigued by that technique,” said Sakatani. “I love collage, but sometimes it can be too much for the eye. I like the notion of imbedding a photographic image and working on top of that.”

Born in Chino, California, Sakatani grew up on the family strawberry farm. Several family members were interned during the war, including his parents and his grandfather. An artwork of his with a similar theme, “Heart Mountain Kabuki: Escape,” was accepted in the first de Young Open in 2020. He was inspired after attending the annual Heart Mountain Pilgrimage at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, where his family was incarcerated.

“I decided to go there in honor of my parents and grandparents,” said Sakatani. “My grandfather, Sumijiro Arita, was a prosperous farmer and popular Issei community leader before the war. The experience took a toll on him.”

The painting shows samurai warriors in full regalia, using swords to cut through barbed wire fencing to escape from a camp. “I made this sort of fantasy, imagining that if the samurai families were taken away, they would revolt and try to escape,” said Sakatani. “Works like Kenneth’s expose frequently ignored aspects of racism in American society and reveal the discrepancies between the high ideals and the harsh realities of life in the U.S. for Japanese American families,” said Timothy Anglin Burgard, distinguished senior curator and Ednah Root, curator in charge of American Art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, who led the curatorial jury for both the 2020 and 2023 Opens.

One of the beautiful things about the de Young Open, which runs through Jan. 7, 2024, is that each work is for sale with 100 percent of the proceeds going directly to the artist. Sakatani priced “Closed Till Further Notice” at $1,500.

Sakatani, who came to San Francisco in 1969, after earning a bachelor of fine arts degree from USC, became an art instructor in public schools before teaching at the college level at De Anza College, University of the Arts in Philadelphia and Cal State Northridge, where he eventually chaired the art department.

He and his wife of 34 years, Candace, who is a musician and composer, live in Noe Valley. Sakatani works in his home studio (a small shed in the back yard) two to three times each week, striking a balance between his passion for gardening and nature. The pair take a lot of walks in Golden Gate Park and at beaches, such as Crissy Field, along with taking short getaways to Santa Cruz and Monterey. “We go to Stow Lake a lot,” said Sakatani. “But the ocean is sort of a psychic renewal for us.”

The de Young Open 2023 runs through Jan. 7, 2024, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr. (Golden Gate Park). Information: famsf.org.