Artist Statement

Misa’s practice explores perception, interconnection, and the fluid boundaries between human and more-than-human worlds. Her work begins from sensing rather than concept: Her art practice is a way of registering subtle shifts, atmospheres, and the unseen dynamics that shape experience.

Growing up in Japan deeply informs this orientation. Everyday encounters with animistic worldviews — in which mountains, plants, objects, and weather hold their own agency — shaped her understanding of nature as active and relational. This perspective allows her to approach ecological interconnectedness not as a theory but as an intuitive way of being. It guides her attention toward alternative modes of perception and presence, prompting her to notice small shifts, hidden patterns, and the atmosphere of places and encounters. These moments of noticing often spark new work.

Misa’s process is spontaneous, intuitive, and responsive. Working with mark making, collage, and printmaking techniques, she allows marks accumulate through spontaneity, chance, and responsive decision-making. Compositions emerge through the interplay of intention and unpredictability. The quietly meditative tradition of Japanese nature painting informs her aesthetic approach particularly the use of emptiness as an active field, the atmospheric transitions, and forms that remain ambiguous and in flux.

Misa draws inspirations from folklore, myth, poetry, music, and science : sources that offer different ways of observing and understanding the world. They reveal the layers of experience lie beneath everyday perception and highlight the value of multiple ways of knowing, including those beyond the human viewpoint. Her artworks are expressions of these perceptions: how she moves through the world, how she observes it, and how it moves her.

At the core of her practice is curiosity. By staying open to the unknown and the intangible, Misa approaches art-making as a way of continually reorienting herself, expanding perception, and engaging with the world’s infinitely layered possibilities. Her work occupies a liminal space between the visible and the intangible, operating as a site of imagination and a proposition for alternative ways of noticing the invisible energies, quiet presences, and transient forms of the world.

BIO

Misa was born in Japan and has lived in the UK for the last 20 years. She completed an MA in Printmaking at Camberwell College of Arts in 2013 and is a recipient of the Bainbridge Studio Award and the Intaglio Printmaker Awards at The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers National Original Print Exhibition. She regularly exhibits at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair.

Education

Sept 2022-2023 TURP Correspondence course

Sept 2013 MA in Printmaking, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London

Mar 2011 UAL level 4 Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, Citylit (awarded by UAL)

Sept 1999 LLB in Law, University of Warwick

Exhibitions

Oct 2025 Lido Open, The Lido Store, Margate

Oct 2025 “Materiality”, The Handbag Factory, London

Feb 2025 “From our garden you could touch the moon, almost”, Duo exhibition, The Handbag Factory, London

Dec 2024 Southwark Art Gallery Exhibition, London

Nov 2024 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London

Nov 2024 Southwark Park Galleries Open 2024, London

Oct 2024 “Playground” group exhibition by Swan Art, The Handbag Factory, London

Oct 2023 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London

Sept 2023 Group show, “do not swallow”, London

Mar 2023 Solo show, “In praise of fragments”, Jeannie Avent Gallery, London

Oct 2022 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London

Mar 2022 Solo show, “Second sight”, Jeannie Avent Gallery, London

Oct 2021 The Other Art Fair, London

Mar 2021 Solo show, “the other way to listen”, Jeannie Avent Gallery, London

Oct 2020 Art2Life Exhibition, online

Nov 2019 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London

Oct 2019 Roy’s Art Fair, the Old Truman Brewery, London

Sept 2019 National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London

Mar 2019 Artist’s talk “Us as Nature”, Citylit, London

Jan 2019 The Structure of Things, Bearspace Gallery, London

Sept 2018 National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London

Aug 2018 Japan Exhibition, West Yorkshire Print Workshop, Yorkshire

Oct 2017 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London

Oct 2017 Awagami International Miniature Print Exhibition, Japan

July 2016 Small Print International, touring exhibition in England

Feb 2016 New Home, Mile End Art Pavilion, London

May 2014 Bainbridge Open, Embassy Gallery, London

Dec 2013 Without Boundaries, Menier Gallery, London

Award/ Prize

Sept 2019 Intaglio Printmaker’s prize at National Original Print Exhibition

May 2014 Excellence in Printmaking by East London Printmakers at Bainbridge Open

Sep 2013 Bainbridge Studio Award

Apr 2025. MacFarlanes Art Prize 2024-25, First prize winner

Residencies

Nov 2024 JOYA artist residency, Spain

July 2018 Officina Stamperia Del Notaio, Italy