Masako Miki (b. 1973, Osaka, Japan) is a multimedia artist whose work ranges installation and large-scale sculpture, printmaking, watercolor and felting. A native of Japan, she now lives and works in Berkeley, CA. Her work frequently explores the idea of synthesis—manipulating contradicting spatial elements to suggest a disoriented context and space. The artist bases her narrative on her own experiences of becoming bicultural in the United States at the age of eighteen. Strongly influenced by craft and folk art of different cultures, she remains close to her ancestral traditions, frequently considering motifs and ideologies that arise from her association with Buddhism, Shintoism, and traditional Japanese folklore. The artist’s practice is further rooted in the belief that art can foster social contexts in which contemporary and universally relevant mythologies and social narratives can be generated—replacing or fixing harmful misconceptions and mythologies of the past that have previously sparked social injustices.

In 2020, Miki’s functional furniture was commissioned to be a part of San Francisco’s forthcoming, landmark Minna-Natoma Art Corridor. In 2021, her large-scale sculptures were commissioned as a permanent installation at the Uber Technologies Headquarters in Mission Bay, San Francisco. She has been included in solo and group exhibitions at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, KY (2023); Nassima Landau Art Foundation, Israel (2023); ICA San Jose, CA (2022); Katonah Museum of Art, NY (2022); Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, CA (2022); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA (2019); and de Young Museum, CA (2016), among others. Her work is included in the collections of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA; Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation, NY; Collección SOLO, Spain; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. She received her MFA from San Jose State University.

Masako Miki, Empathy Lab, Installated at Ryan Lee Gallery, May 18 – June 30, 2023

Masako Miki, Empathy Lab, Installated at Ryan Lee Gallery, May 18 – June 30, 2023

Hyakki Yagho, Night Parade of One Hundred Demons - Following Plaster Wall Shapeshifter and a Cat Who Lived a Million Years