5 Things We Learned... Miya Ando

Miya Ando just wrapped up (literally) one of her most high-profile public installations to date during this year’s Miami Art Week. If you were in town or perusing art world Instagram posts, it’s likely you came across the Faena Cloud Hotel, where Miya wrapped the iconic Versailles Hotel with mesh fabric art panels. The installation Sora Versailles depicts sunset and sunrise on each side of the building, encouraging viewers to contemplate time, place, and temporality as they experience the site up-close or at a distance. While the colorful work packs a punch along the Miami skyline, Miya’s more subtle and post-minimalist works are equally as impactful. Drawing from Buddhist philosophical underpinnings, she pays acute attention to how light and color are expressed in space and material. Each work - painting, sculpture, textile, and print - is beautifully nuanced in meaning and affect, created after long processes of material experimentation and exploration.

Her work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions internationally including The Noguchi Museum, Queens, NY; The Katzen Arts Center, Washington, D.C.; Shibuya Seibu, Tokyo, Japan; Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York, NY; and Lesley Kehoe Galleries, Melbourne, Australia. Her work has also been included in group exhibitions at LACMA, Los Angeles, CA; San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA; Bronx Museum, New York, NY; Queens Museum of Art, New York, NY, and others.

Here are 5 Things We Learned about Miya.

What made you...you?

The most impactful thing in my life religiously, familial-ly and philosophically has been living in a Buddhist temple with my grandparents and Japanese family. Equally influential was living in a redwood forest in the Santa Cruz mountains. My mother and her teaching of Urasenke tea ceremony and teaching me about Zen Buddhism has shaped my life. 

When are you happiest?

I’m equally happy when I’m in my studio alone and when I’m spending time with my family and loved ones. 

Would you rather have a muse or be a muse?

I would rather have a muse, which I already do. 

Who do you admire?

My parents and my husband and my siblings, my close friends. 

What is important?

Calm.