Misaki Kawai was born in 1978 and grew up in Osaka, Japan. Her Father being an architect and Sunday painter, and her mother making clothing and puppets by hand. Like many other adolescent Japanese girls, she was influenced by western pop culture to a fanatical degree. She was greatly fascinated with 60’s fashion and hippie culture, often following her mother’s example and hand making clothes for herself. Although her mother’s needlework was impeccable, Misaki favored a more haphazard handmade look.

She graduated from the Kyoto College of Art in Kyoto, Japan in 1999, and traveled to Turkey, Nepal, and Thailand, where she was greatly influenced by handmade dolls, textiles, and low quality manufactured objects. She then visited the U.S. where she was influenced by contemporary art. Although residing in Osaka, Japan, she has spent a great deal of her time staying and making work in New York.

She currently strives to make work which keeps the innocent, honest integrity of adolescent playfulness, but on a more grand and sophisticated level. In Air Show, Misaki creates airborne doll houses in the form of various aircraft constructed from materials such as cardboard, fabric, pieces of her own clothing, and other materials including cheaply manufactured objects found or bought in thrift stores, 99 cent stores, or shops in Chinatown. The dolls that ride in or pilot these planes are clothed in miniature versions of the types of clothing that interest Kawai. Their faces are from photographs that have been transferred on and usually derive from western pop culture, and often are from members of 60’s bands or movies favored by the artist. She often makes dolls in her own likeness and those of her friends. In Misaki’s work, you are likely to see post Beatles Ringo Starr piloting a small aircraft co-piloted by R2D2 and C3PO, or an entire commercial airliner piloted and staffed by several versions of Kawai herself.

EDUCATION:

1997-1999 Kyoto College of Art, Kyoto, Japan

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2002-03 Air Show, Kenny Schachter ConTEMPorary, New York, NY
2002 Garbage Room, New Image Art, West Hollywood, CA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

2002
Miami, curated by Kenny Schachter, Miami, FL
Mica & Misaki, curated by Victoria Reis and Jayme McLellan, Transformer, Washinghton D.C.
Dime Bag, curated by Jordin Isip and Rodger Stevens, New Image Art, West Hollywood, CA
New Image Art, curated by Marsea Goldberg, at Stockholm Art Fair
Tensionism, curated by Kenny Schacher, Perry Street Rove, New York, NY
Panorama, curated by Jordin Isip and Rodger Stevens, San Francisco and Brooklyn
The Exquisite Day Project, curated by Jordin Isip and Rodger Stevens, Plus Ultra, Brooklyn, NY
Move East, curated by Rich Jacobs, One Pixel, Philadelphia, PA
New Loft, curated by Taylor Mckimens, Brooklyn, NY
International Millennium Show, 450 Broadway Gallery, New York, NY