Miya Ando: Sora/ku (Sky/Emptiness)

Sundaram Tagore Galleries in Hong Kong and Singapore presents a dual exhibition of new paintings by New York artist Miya Ando.

The exhibition will debut in Hong Kong September 23, then open in Singapore on October 29.

The foundation of Miya Ando’s practice is the transformation of surfaces. She produces light-reflecting gradients on metal by applying heat, sandpaper, grinders, acids and coatings, creating ephemeral, abstract paintings suffused with color inspired by nature. By layering pigments, dyes, urethane and resins onto the metal, she creates variations of color and finish, with some areas of the painting matte and others glossy. It is by an almost meditative repetition of these techniques that Ando is able to subtract, reduce and distill her concept until it reaches its simplest form.

“My work is an exploration into the duality of metal and its ability to convey strength and permanence, yet in the same instance absorb shifting color and capture the fleetingness of light. It reminds us of the transitory nature of all things in life.”

A descendant of Bizen sword makers, Miya Ando spent her childhood among Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan, and later, in California. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended Yale University to study Buddhist iconography and imagery. She apprenticed with the master metal smith Hattori Studio in Japan, followed by a residency at Northern California’s Public Art Academy. Her work has been shown worldwide, including in a show curated by Nat Trotman of the Guggenheim Museum and an exhibition at the Queens Museum, New York. A large installation is currently on view in Frontiers Reimagined, a collateral event of the 56th Venice Biennale.
Miya Ando is the recipient of many awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2012. She has produced numerous public commissions, most notably a thirty-foot-tall sculpture in London built from World Trade Center steel to mark the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, for which she was nominated for the 2015 DARC Award in Best Light Art Installation. She lives and works in New York.