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Miya Kosowick Mawatari (b. Prince George, Canada) is a half-Japanese Canadian artist based in London, UK.
I am interested in the ways in which inside and outside relationships manifest through space (architecture) and identity (anthropology). Through the combination of found and made objects as installations, I investigate the subjective and ever-changing nature of maintenance, heritage and cultural authenticity.
I bring the outside in by recreating concrete pavement slabs with grass seeping through their cracks, questioning the upkeep of controlled environments and public spaces. I build a house-like structure with minimal wooden beams that is barely supported by a wobbly Victorian railing. I create an imposter of a Zen Garden by using rice grains instead of pebbles. It is precisely the incorrect usage of rice or noodles that illustrates the lost ties to my heritage.
I highlight all of this to be but a fleeting attempt to ground us in a reality that is inevitably entropic. Accompanying my installations are paintings that serve as ideas whilst the sculptures are consequences. I paint a window into an alternative reimagined world. A muted colour palette subconsciously drawn from the urban, rural, and natural landscapes in British Columbia, Japan, and the UK emerge. Through simple abstract and figurative gestures onto fragile sheets of rice paper and canvas, I hint at future archaeological traces and memories that lead to a virtual elsewhere.
Navigating between inside and outside of controlled and natural worlds, through this practice I aim to reimagine a future liberated from permanence and eurocentrism as I reject linearity. At this point in time, my vision is not fixed but rather open to functions that extend beyond the world in which we continue to destroy.