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Biography
Naomi
Mizuno
DOB:
29 August 1978
Born and work in Japan
I am largely a self-taught artist. I can't remember when I first came into contact with art,
but I feel it has always been part of my life. Since elementary school, I have always been drawing
- doodling flowers and leaves in textbooks when I was bored in class.
It's a comfortable feeling to have a pen in my hands moving, wherever I am.
As a child I took private lessons in calligraphy for 10 years, which probably reflect how I articulate the sense of line in my drawings with confidence.
I joined a formal art club in school, and I took up oil-painting at the age of 13. After I graduated from high school,
I took up graphic design and worked as a commercial artist in Nagano and Tokyo. This was fun for a while but part of me still looked constantly for something else.
The turning point came when I decided to study with my great-uncle, the woodblock artist Shinnosuke Miyaura, from Nagano. He was by then already an established name in Japan,
and studying with him made me think about creativity in a different sense - I started experiencing a professional calling for art. It was under his encouragement that I finally found
the courage to exhibit as an 'artist' proper, in the year 2000. My artwork of that year was largely of an abstract nature.
I moved to U.K. in 2003 and after spending four years in abroad, I decided to take up a proper study of the Japanese woodblock print in the Musashino Art University in Japan.
I have now been taking the courses, since 2007.
Artist statement
I have a fascination with organic forms, and vitality in nature. I am fascinated by movement, flux, alternative paths, and change. In particular I am inspired by trees and plants in nature, that continue to sprout, grow, bloom and bear fruit each year. I wonder about potential, about the myriad paths that can be taken and the places these paths can lead to.
This fascination with transformance is no doubt inspired by my being an identical twin. Whether we are living together, or on different continents as is the case today, the influence of my twin is strong. In my work, this manifests itself in various ways. Twin figures are represented in varying degrees of abstraction. The figures can be seen represented directly, or more abstractly through representations of the joined and the separated, and also in patterns suggesting distance and proximity.
I am often struck by strange coincidences of events in my life with those of my twin. For example we often seem to be struck by similar problems at the same time, as though there is some invisible cord connecting us through any distance. The psychological effects of this are explored and given expression in several images.
As a teenager I was taught woodblock printing by my great-uncle, and the influence of that careful, considered, slow and methodical technique can also be seen in several of my images.
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