Aiko Miyawaki

Aiko Miyawaki (宮脇 愛子) was a Japanese sculptor and painter.

She was best known for her sculpture series titled Utsurohi, installed at public spaces worldwide.

Born Aiko Araki in Tokyo, Miyawaki moved to Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture with her family at a young age.

Miyawaki was known to be a weak child, and her family changed her given name several times to make her stronger.

She was once Takako during kindergarten years and then Mikiko when she started school.

In March 1946, Miyawaki graduated from the Odawara High School for Girls (now Odawara High School).

At Japan Women’s University, she studied with historian Noboru Ōrui in the Department of History and her thesis focused on the art of the Momoyama period.

She graduated in March 1952.

During her university years, she began dating Shunzō Miyawaki, a student in the Department of Western History at the University of Tokyo.

In 1953, Miyawaki began studying with Abe, who was familiar with art of Europe and America, at Bunka Gakuin.

She was introduced to art from overseas and even learned a little Polish since she was interested in Polish art.

Also through Kamiya, Miyawaki was introduced to the artist Yoshishige Saitō, and this encounter made her realize the significance of exhibiting her works.

Meanwhile, having wanted to know more about art overseas, Miyawaki went to the U.S. for a short time to study painting at the University of California, Los Angeles and Santa Monica City College in 1957.

Many of her paintings dated between 1958 and 1962 were titled Work (作品, Sakuhin).

In the summer of 1959, she visited Vienna to participate in the World Artists Conference (世界美術家会議).

Afterwards, Takiguchi Shūzō, who was in the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), recommended Miyawaki to stay in Milan.

In Milan, Miyawaki was said to have been introduced by Nobuya Abe to Enrico Baj, who became Miyawaki's guarantor.

She also befriended Lucio Fontana, Enrico Castellani, Piero Manzoni, and other artists.

Around 1959, Miyawaki developed a new and innovative series by mixing enamel and marble powder with paint and applying it directly on canvas often with a palette knife to create textured and sometimes patterned surfaces.

This body of work was featured in her first solo exhibition at Yōseidō Gallery, Tokyo in December 1959.

Some pointed out that her painting surfaces resemble the minute relief surface of Kamakura-bori.

When she was asked whether her style was influenced by Art Informel during her time in Milan, she rejected it.

The two got married while still in school and they separated in 1960 and divorced in 1965.

When she was a student, Miyawaki was introduced to the Western-style painter Nobuya Abe through her sister-in-law, the painter Nobuko Kamiya.

Through Gio Ponti’s daughter Lisa Ponti, Miyawaki was connected to the Galleria Minima in Milan, where she would later have a solo exhibition in 1961.

In January 1962, Miyawaki temporarily returned to Japan and held her second solo exhibition in Japan at Tokyo Gallery.

Her paintings caught the attention of a French art dealer André Schoeller who was visiting Japan at the time.

Miyawaki signed a contract with Schoeller and stayed in Paris for a year to produce works and hold exhibitions.

Miyawaki got acquainted with Man Ray either around this time in Paris, or earlier in Milan.

Against the original plan of returning to Japan from Paris in 1963, she made a stop in New York and stayed there until 1966.

She stayed in the Chelsea Hotel for part of her stay, if not the entire period of time.

During her New York years, Miyawaki held a solo exhibition at Berta Schaefer Gallery in 1964 and May Ray wrote a foreword to the exhibition catalog.

Miyawaki also befriended Richard Lindner, likely during her time in New York.

After returning to Japan, Miyawaki began taking up sculpture.

Miyawaki started to create works using brass pipes, square tubes and cylinders to manifest the effect of light.

In October 1966, she exhibited her work at the Guggenheim International Sculpture Exhibition held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and her work consisting of brass square tubes received the museum's Purchase Award.

Miyawaki recalled that in the creation of these works, she had students from the Department of Architecture at the University of Tokyo helping her in her studio by performing such tasks as polishing the pipes.

In November 1966, Miyawaki participated in the exhibition From Space to Environment, held at the Matsuya department store in Ginza, Tokyo, where she first met the architect and designer Arata Isozaki.

For the exhibition, Miyawaki showed Work (ca. 1966) in which she superimposed triangles made of aluminum and melamine resin to create a three-dimensional representation of perspective in a plane.

In November 1968, Miyawaki exhibited a work titled Shindō (振動, "Vibration") at the 5th Nagaoka Contemporary Art Museum Award Exhibition.