MIZUKI NISHIYAMA
b. 1998, Hong Kong
Lives and works in Hong Kong
Mizuki Nishiyama is a Hong Kong-based, mixed-Japanese artist whose raw and confrontational artworks span paintings, sculptures, tapestries, poetry, and performances, all exploring the fragile human condition. She draws inspiration from both Eastern and Western traditions, bridging her Hong Kong, Japanese, and Italian cultural heritages. Nishiyama notably engages in dialogues and critiques the socio-political aspects of the female experience, incorporating the soil from her Japanese paternal homeland-where her military ancestors have been buried since the 1400s-into her works. Through this, she reevaluates themes of ancestry, patriarchy, and time.
Exploring ideas of purity, femininity, Shintoism, and trauma; the artist utilises the elements of the world and responds to what it means to be a woman today. The premise of the work begins with soil that the artist excavated from her paternal land in Japan; which dates back to the 1400s where her military ancestors (including members who committed Seppuku ritual suicides), and members that shaped Shintoism (Yoshida family; constructing the foundation of purification within the religion).
In the tapestries, Nishiyama is inspired by the concept of Kami; translating to "God", which holds no visual representation in Shintoism - only through Shide (white folded pieces of paper). White organic fabrics were first sourced, then burned (fire) to commence God and patriarchy to death, the fabrics were then buried in the ancestral soil (earth) for months, new life was given as they were pulled back out to be soaked in Japanese immune boosting teas (water), naturally weathered in London's (air), and finally treated with traditional Japanese distressing and sewing techniques; Sashiko and Boro; to construct and respond to past, present, and future narratives of existence, and the female narrative of the East and West.
In her paintings, Nishiyama incorporates the same soil as well as a deliberate knife cutting technique to slice through viscous oil pigments on canvas to depict violence and tranquillity. Embracing deeply personal experiences to craft each artwork, the artist's ongoing relationship with reproductive health and trauma has greatly influenced her practice and fuelled her to confront vulnerability, fragility and the human condition.
Creating is a chaotic yet meditative process for Nishiyama that allows her to make sense of the more tempestuous periods in life as well as continue to merge interdisciplinary thoughts and mediums to visualize the contemporary experience.
Nishiyama holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Central Saint Martins and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Parsons School of Design.
Her solo exhibitions include "Shunga" (2020) at Whitestone Gallery Hong Kong, "An Exploration of Human Fragility: Love & Lust" (2020) at the Tenri Cultural Institute of New York, and "脆い Moroi: An Exploration of Human Fragility" (2019) at Greenpoint Gallery New York.