Mia O
Mia O
I am a South Korean artist, currently living and working in Tokyo, Japan. I received the BFA in Fine Arts from Hong-ik University, Seoul, Korea and the MFA in Painting from Pratt Institute School of Art in New York. I was a 2003 participant in the Nagasawa Art Park Artist-in-Residence program, run by the Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory, where I was introduced to Mokuhanga, a traditional print making process using water based ink on hand made Japanese paper. My works have been exhibited and collected internationally, including a purchase award by the Hawaii state Foundation for culture and the Arts, Art in Public Places. and inclusion into the Kentler International Drawing Spaces Flatfiles.
Over the last ten years I have concerned myself with the landscape, more specifically nature, which I feel a great affinity with.
I used to observe landscape with a bird’s eye view. However, I have changed my viewpoint so that I am now looking upwards towards the sun, which I believe has energised me to start producing circular prints.
Whilst I was preparing My first Mokuhanga exhibition in 2016, entitled “Pilgrimage of Landscape”, I played with the crossing and overlapping of lines. This was something I realized that was important to me: unexpected geometric shapes and patterns revealed themselves when I experimented with these line drawings.
When I approach printmaking, I don’t want to simply replicate a drawing or painting. I want the print to be ‘original’ and to evolve naturally and organically. I enjoy the element of unpredictability within the print medium.
