masako miki
Bio
Masako Miki is a native of Japan and now lives and works in Berkeley, CA. She has exhibited throughout the Bay Area. Recently, she was a residency artist at Vermont Studio Center and Wassaic Project in New York, and a nominee for 2010 SECA art award from SFMOMA. She is a recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the Santo Foundation. Her work is available at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery, Park Life, the Swarm Gallery, the Bay Area Visual Arts Network, and now available on Paper House Press. She received her MFA from San Jose State University.
Artist Statement
My works explores the idea of synthesis. I manipulate contradicting spatial elements such as flatness and illusion to suggest a disoriented context, where the dichotomy becomes an integrated visual reality. The narrative is based on my own experiences of living in the United States for seventeen years, and concerns dilemmas of my cultural identity. I wonder how one can truly assimilate into an environment he/she is not from. I feel mixed emotions of pessimism and optimism. I am interested in the psychological aspects of how one processes new environments and culture. In the constant adjustment, I have realized feelings of perplexity, incongruity, and obscurity, are always a part of my psyche. Ultimately, I want to believe that different cultures can be hybridized and become a unique alternative one. In this realm, I hope to find a sense of equilibrium.
Paper House Press 