ARTIST STATEMENT

In my work, I create quiet, abstract, meditative environments as a study of spiritual expression. Ultimately I am interested in the study of subtraction to the point of purity, simplicity and refinement. I am Japanese and Russian-American, a descendant of Bizen sword maker Ando Yoshiro Masakatsu, and was raised between two worlds: among sword smiths-turned Buddhist priests in a Buddhist temple in Okayama, Japan, and amongst the redwoods in coastal Santa Cruz, California. I am influenced by meditation, nature, geometry and the ethos and aesthetics of Zen Reductivism. I work primarily in metals and light; themes in my work are impermanence, transformation and transcendence.

ARTIST BIO

Miya Ando was born in Los Angeles and raised between Japan and Northern California. She graduated from UC Berkeley and left a Master's in East Asian Studies at Yale to become an apprentice to a master metal smith in Japan. Ando has exhibited her paintings and sculpture in exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Greece and widely throughout the United States. She recently unveiled a 9/11 Memorial Sculpture in London, which she created by polishing part of a 30-foot piece of World Trade Center steel to a mirror finish. Ando has created large scale public artwork in Korea, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin and San Francisco.

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