MAKI Gallery is pleased to present a solo presentation of paintings and sculptures—a number of which will be exhibited for the first time—by New York-based artist Miya Ando for West Bund Art & Design 2021 in Shanghai at Booth B320. The fair will take place 12-14 November, with a VIP Preview on 11 November.
In her conceptually-driven paintings, sculptures, and installations, Miya Ando turns to nature to express fundamental realities of existence. Fleeting natural phenomena such as the seasons, clouds, tides, rain, or moonlight, become metaphors in her work to express the passage of time and the unending cycles of change in the universe. Featured at West Bund, will be Ando's meditative installation The Cathedral (The Shrine of Trees, The Sisters and The Mother), the artist's signature Kumo (Cloud) and Unkai (Sea of Clouds) series, as well as her Shou Sugi Ban sculptures and wall-mounted panels. The design of the installation replicates a ring of trees—a natural occurrence known as a cathedral—which is formed when the oldest, largest tree drops its seeds, resulting in a ring of new trees that grow around the central 'mother' tree. From among the trees on gossamer silk chiffon panels, emerge Ando's experiential images of clouds, which shift and change with the transitory light, engaging the viewer in a phenomenological experience of the impermanent. The artist's reclaimed wood sculptures coated with silver nitrate, also reflect light and juxtapose the natural with the man-made, the finite with the infinite. Debuting at West Bund will be a series of wall-mounted wood panels where Ando has both charred—referencing the traditional Japanese shou sugi ban method of burning cedar to transform it into fireproof architectural cladding—and partially coated the panels with silver nitrate, alluding to the never-ending cycle of the rising and falling tides. Collectively, Ando's works establish a ground for contemplating the impermanent, ephemeral natural world and our place within it.
Born in 1973, in Los Angeles, California, Miya Ando uses a variety of materials including steel, aluminum, and wood to create abstract paintings, sculptures, and installations. Ando skillfully fuses the traditional and the contemporary, the industrial and the natural, East and West, reflecting the essence of nature in her work with refinement and sensitivity. Ando's work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at The Asia Society Museum, Houston; The Noguchi Museum, New York; Savannah College of Art and Design Museum, Savannah; The Nassau County Museum, Roslyn Harbor; and The American University Museum, Washington DC. Her work has also been included in recent group exhibitions at The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Haus Der Kunst, Munich; The Bronx Museum; and The Queens Museum of Art, NY. Ando's work is included in the public collections of LACMA; The Nassau County Museum; The Corning Museum of Glass; The Detroit Institute of Arts; The Luft Museum; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art; The Santa Barbara Museum of Art; The Museum of Art and History; among other public institutions as well as in numerous private collections. Ando has been the recipient of several grants and awards including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant Award, and has produced numerous public commissions, most notably a thirty-foot-tall sculpture built from World Trade Center steel installed in Olympic Park in London to mark the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, for which she was nominated for a DARC Award in Best Light Art Installation. Ando was also commissioned to create artwork for the historic Philip Johnson Glass House, New Canaan, CT. The artist holds a bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, studied East Asian Studies at Yale University and Stanford University, and apprenticed with a Master Metalsmith in Japan.
Press Release: Courtesy of MAKI