This is a blog about abundance in life through art- [Behind the Scene]
Art gives you energy, different perspectives, and inspiration!
As an artist, I believe art gives you energy and allows you to see things from multiple perspectives and provides inspiration in your life. This blog is for my personal daily thoughts and the creative process that forms my mixed media creations. Sometimes, printmaking, acrylic, and photography, too. It depends on my series/projects. I will share what inspires and motivates me and the creative angles I am led towards. In that, I will reveal concepts, techniques, and even mistakes. This is Misako OBA sharing flowing thoughts.
My hope is to reflect the diversity of thought and experience.
Who is Misako OBA?
Visual Artist (Mixed media painting, in which she often incorporates text, encaustic, and oil. Printmaking. Fine art photography). Author of artbooks (monograph: her text in English and Japanese) and Editor/Writer. The Interview article was published when having had an exhibition and can be found here.
Born and raised in Japan, Misako OBA studied photography and other media in a U.S. graduate program and completed additional studies in France and Japan. Her artworks have been exhibited at galleries and art fairs internationally such as in Germany, France, Belgium, and Japan and throughout the U.S., including prestigious AIPAD Shows in New York, Photo l.a., and Salon d’Automne in Paris. She often travels internationally.
Her creations are held in private, corporate, and public collections such as in the Museum of Encaustic in the U.S. and Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, France. Her art has been honored with multiple awards including first prizes such as in The Pollux Awards/ The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards. In 2017, she was selected as a visual artist for the Artist-in-Residency program supported by Brush Creek Foundation of the Arts and spent her summer creating a series of encaustic mixed-media works.
Misako’s body of work explores human life as a journey. It is a metaphor for our lives. It is a deep exploration of our souls and emotions. It also depicts light in the darkness, transient nature, the beauty of life, and her perspective. She integrates both ancient and contemporary elements in one piece; timeless messages and materials from our time such as social issues like climate change, computer-programming languages (codes), or facts and statistics in text or images with a conceptual and philosophical approach. She uses both traditional and modern techniques and layers them.
She enjoys interaction with audiences in various exhibitions, book signing events, presenting an artist talk and Q&A session, and also has given lectures to the MFA students, professors, and general public at universities such as State University in New York as well as at other places in Seattle, South Korea, and Japan. (For general inquiry)(Inquiry about a talk/books )
Her art career was initially launched specializing in photography, exploring themes employing traditional chemical processes such as archival gelatin silver prints and toning. Later on, she also embraces advanced technology with them.
Misako’s professional repertoire has since expanded to mixed media painting, in which she often incorporates text, encaustic, oil and her own photographic images in compositions relevant to each series’ overall concept.
Besides gallery exhibitions and art sales, she also works for commissions. her commission work would be based on her style, however, she works well together with the clients, collectors, and collaborators. One of the recent works; she created the album artwork for Ryan Redebaugh’s [Ture North]. Have a look at it and listen to the music.
Her encaustic work was included in the book, “Encaustic Revelation,” published by North Light Book in the U.S., and her limited editioned monograph (artbook: fine art photography and some mixed-media works with her poem-like text in bilingual in English/Japanese) “FAUSTUS” was published in Japan, and became available internationally including galleries and the Museum bookstore in the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, and other part of Europe and at notable bookstores such as Dashwood Books in New York among others for collectors. The book became a permanent library collection at the museums such as Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France.
Recently, Misako Oba also created handcrafted and handbound artist books “Cry for LOVE –What Women Feel” vol. 1, and “Beyond Time Waka Poem“ from “Truth in Emotion, Beyond Time and Space” series for the first time. Those titles became available from fall/winter 2020-2021. They debuted by exhibited in Vancouver Art Book Fair and Tokyo Art Book Fair.
Handcrafted Artist Books with encaustic:
+[Cry for LOVE -What Women Feel vol. 1]: About the book / Order
+[Beyond Time Waka Poem]: About the book / Order
Artbooks/ Monographs:
+[FAUSTUS]: About / Order (Internationally)/ Order online
+[PACTUM] 〜 Contract with the Angel 〜
+[The Gift of Loss]
Misako OBA’s exhibitions & links: linktr.ee/misakooba
Misako Oba’s website: www.misakooba.com (under construction)
More about her: Former career and hometown
Instagram: @misakoobaart
Facebook: MisakoArt
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Behind the Scene, Misako OBA 大庭みさこ 