“The idea was to place myself as George Washington and hopefully raise all the questions that would go along with it, such as, ‘What if Japanese-Americans were in a position in this country where one might have been George Washington?’ I mean, that is such a stretch to think of that. But I like the absurdity of that extreme.”

The painting is part of a series born out of Shimomura's experience of being relocated with his family to an internment camp during World War II, when it was argued that Japanese-Americans were a threat to the nation.

'StripeTease' by Tam Tran explores the artist's changing relationship to her own developing identity.

“It’s really insulting to a person like myself who spent two years behind barbed wires during World War II, and who served in the military for several years, to be assumed as being a foreigner,” he says

Shizu Saldamando was born and raised in California but her art makes strong references to her Japanese and Mexican heritage; two ethnic groups which have faced discrimination.

In her series of portraits, the mixed-media artist has combined photographic images of her friends taken during casual social situations and presented them on a gold leaf background on wood panels to create a unique body of work.

She hopes that people viewing her art, “will question what they see as normal, and question their own stereotypes or assumptions about who they see in the paintings.”