Miya Ando – Evenings

Exhibition dates: January 17th – February 28th, 2015
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 17th, 6 – 9 pm
 
Madison Gallery is pleased to present new work by emerging New York artist Miya Ando exploring transitory nature of time and place.
 
A descendant of Bizen sword makers, Ando was raised among Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan. Combining traditional techniques of her ancestry with modern industrial technology, she skillfully transforms sheets of metal into ephemeral, abstract paintings suffused with color.

The foundation of Ando’s practice is the transformation of surfaces. She applies heat, sandpaper, grinders, acid and patinas to metal canvases,irrevocably altering the material’s chemical properties to produce subtle, light-reflective gradations of color and texture. The resulting works subtly evoke ethereal, minimalist landscapes, cloud formations and abstracted metallic horizons.

Ando’s goal is to create a relationship between her industrial materials and the natural world. “I’m interested in elemental and material transformations, so I look to materials that can show a duality. Hard metal becomes ethereal and reflects light differently throughout the day, or becomes something that captures changing light, as in the sky,” she says. “The paintings are about finding harmony and balance between the man-made and natural.”

The exhibition will explore this harmony with a new body of work focused on the transitory passing of the day into the hush quietness of evening. Additionally, Ando will utilize her skills as a sculptor to explore new mediums such as glass to isolate cloud fields and Japanese Bodhi leaves hand-dyed in hues reminiscent of evening light.

Whether or not one sees her works as landscapes or seascapes is not important, what is critical is that one sees her art as vital studies of color and light that have the power to influence our emotions and offer a quiet space for contemplation.

Ando’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the world, including a recent show curated by Guggenheim curator Nat Trotman. Miya’s public commissions include project in South Korea, London, New York and California. Her work appears in many important public and private collections and she was the recipient of the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant in 2012, the Thanatopolis Special Artist Award and Public Outdoor Commission Winner and Puffin Foundation Grant winner. She received her Bachelor of Science Magna Cum Laude in EAst Asian Studies at UC Berkeley and continued her studies at Yale University, in addition to serving as an apprentice to a master metal smith in Japan.