Artist Miya Ando is a Woman of the World


Miya Ando is a woman of the world. The half-Japanese, half-Russian-American artist grew up in between a Japanese Buddhist temple and a redwood forest Northern California before migrating east to New York to focus on her artwork. These days, the world-renowned artist has taken up bi-coastal residency in New York and Los Angeles, where she currently balances her time living and working. Her latest project? An exhibition of suspended glass clouds at the Noguchi Museum and a solo show titled “The Cathedral” (The Shrine of Trees, The Sisters and The Mother) at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, California.

As the descendant of a Bizen sword maker, Miya uses her Japanese ancestry as inspiration for many of her mixed media works. Though her preferred medium is metal, the artist has also been known to incorporate elements of light and reflection throughout her different exhibitions. Her artist statements are often centered around the ideas of minimalism and purity.

“Ultimately I am interested in the study of subtraction to the point of purity, simplicity and refinement,” Miya describes the objectives of her artwork. Her simplistic works are oftentimes “inspired by nature,” which comes across in the unique metal treatments she uses to create colorful gradients that mimic landscapes the globetrotter has encountered.

Head of Video: Tina Rosh  DP: Andrew K.

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