Isao Miura

“I grew up on a 300-year-old rice farm in Akita, north Japan. Now my paintings and sculpture seek to explore our human relationships with Mother Earth, with her seasons, weathers, grains and with the creatures like donkeys, dogs and fireflies who share Earth with us. I do not create my work as an effort of campaigning or protest, but it springs from my roots in an organic and non-toxic agriculture and way of life. My work tries to focus and simplify the thoughts in my head down to a shimmering image, a sort of encounter between the self and not-self which uses the vibrancy of colour, line and texture to convey emotion. Many of my paintings are set in early morning or evening, depicting moments of departure or arrival, of a chance meeting or sleep. The shapes and colours I paint are neither purely figurative nor abstract but a sort of symbolism.”

Isao is a Zen painter and sculptor (working mostly in oils, bronze, paper and wood) who hails from the north of Japan but is based in London. He trained at the Chelsea School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art, where he studied under Ken Kiff. He was the first painter to be appointed a Fellow in the bronze foundry at Chelsea College of Arts.