MIYA ANDO | CALENDAR OF MOONS

MIYA ANDO

TSUKI KOYOMI

ANDO

KOYOMI

CALENDAR OF MOONS

TSUKI KOYOMI

We are pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Miya Ando. The artist expands her ongoing investigations into concepts of time and reflects on the recent closures.

When the lockdown went into effect, Ando packed up materials from her Long Island City studio and settled in at home, where she immersed herself in research for a book she’s writing. During this time, she found comfort in the nightly presence of the moon. Its orbit, one of nature’s cyclical events that never changes, was a luminous constant in a seemingly chaotic world. It inspired her to create a calendar of moon drawings based on her observations. She produced one work every day of the closure as a way to mark the passage of time and chronicle the experience.

When she was able to return to her studio, Ando created new work inspired by the moon in different phases and atmospheric conditions, articulated, she says, “in the vocabulary of minute changes in nature as an examination into an alternate recording of time.” Because of the lockdown, she wasn’t able to receive deliveries of her usual materials, so she made do with what she had on hand—powdered pure silver, Japanese washi paper and natural indigo.

Oborozuki

Although Ando is deeply familiar with indigo, this is her first body of work highlighting the medium. Indigo has been used as a natural dye as far back as the 6th century in Japan, where the artist spent her early childhood. She describes it as a visceral color that recalls memories of spending time with her grandparents in the countryside and in the Buddhist temple where her grandfather was head priest. Ando says she felt a longing to reconnect with those feelings and with the simplicity of her life then. Indigo is also a color that conveys the deepest parts of the ocean and space, two vast domains of the natural world that Ando says inspire contemplation and which are often the subject of her work.

The centerpiece of the exhibition, titled 72 Seasons’ Moons, comprises a grid of 72 small indigo paintings on wood that depict the moon in different phases. The number of panels refers to an ancient Chinese calendar system, later adapted by Japan, in which there are 24 primary seasons segmented into 72 micro-seasons per year. The paintings are arranged in chronological order with each panel capturing the moon at a specific moment during 2020. Ando borrows from the traditional Japanese indigo dyeing technique aizome, which preserves the natural color of the wood in select areas, allowing her to use negative space to create the moon and

Blue Gold, 2020, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm

stars. As the indigo saturates the natural grain, it highlights the history and character of the wood.

Paying homage to the Japanese tradition of paper making, Ando created corresponding works using indigo on Japanese Kozo paper, which is derived from the Mulberry plant. In these pieces, the moon occupies only a small portion of the composition. Ando applies the indigo in varying degrees of intensity across the paper, creating a sense of depth and space. She adds pure silver dust to evoke the shimmering Milky Way, referred to in Japanese as Ginga, the silver river in heaven. “During the lockdown I sought solace in creating works that felt like windows I could disappear into,” she says. “It comforts me to look at paintings that feel endless and vast, where, in my mind, I can float away to celestial spaces of quietude.”

As the moon drawings evolved, becoming more abstract and distilled, Ando shifted to a different medium. Employing both aluminum and steel, she created a series of metal paintings in varied formats, including tondos, squares and rectangles, oriented horizontally and vertically. The paintings are rendered in a full spectrum of rich color. Some are saturated in deep shades of blue and aubergine, suggestive of the void

beyond our galaxy; in other works, the moon bathes in the bright glow of first light.

Ando plays with perspective, offering hints of a horizon line or the faintest trace of the moon’s form hidden behind a curtain of mist. These works, she says, investigate the concept of liminal spaces and are part of her new series Oborozuki, a Japanese word for a moon obscured by clouds.

Ando also produced new kumo (cloud) paintings for this exhibition. To capture shifting clouds, she delicately applies translucent layers of color to the reflective metal canvas, leaving areas of negative space to evoke a sense of light emanating from the sky. The effect creates a harmonious balance between the permanence of metal and the ephemerality of the natural world. One of the early works from this series was included in Atmosphere in Japanese Painting at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2018 and acquired for the museum’s permanent collection.

Blue Pink Purple Shift Moon 47, 2020, pigment and urethane on stainless steel, 47 inches/119.4 cm tondo

Heijyoshin (Equanimity) 63.33, 2020, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 63 x 33 inches/160 x 83.8 cm

Silver White Storm, 2020, dye, micronized pure silver, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 48 x 48 inches/121.9 x 121.9 cm

July 29 2020 Night 135 Lockdown (Latitude 40.760131, Longitude -73.980127) 39, 2020, dye, micronized pure silver, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm

Oborozuki (A

Obscured by

Kakejiku 2, 2020, pigment and urethane on aluminum, 48 x 16 inches/121.9 x 40.6 cm

June 5 2020 Night 80 Lockdown (Latitude 40.760131, Longitude -73.980127), 2020, dye, micronized pure silver, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 48 inches/91.4 x 121.9 cm

Faint Pink Tasogare Moon 40, 2020, dye, micronized pure silver, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 40 inches/101.6 cm tondo

Milky Way, 2020, micronized silver, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm

Aqua Lavender Moon 26, 2020, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 26 inches/66 cm tondo

Oborozuki Polyptych, 2020, pigment and urethane on aluminum, 48 x 64 inches/121.9 x 162.6 cm

July 3 2020 Night 109 Lockdown (Latitude 40.760131, Longitude -73.980127), 2020, dye, micronized pure silver, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm

Night Cloud Tondo 28, 2020, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 28 inches/71.1 cm tondo

Tasogare (Dusk) 5.6, 2019, ink, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum composite, 59 x 75 inches/149.9 x 190.5 cm

Oborozuki (A Moon Obscured by Clouds) Faint Blue, 2020, pigment and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm

Pink Cloud, 2020, pigment, resin, silver and urethane on stainless steel, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm

Indigo 10.19.6.4.1.M.1.2.3.G.1.L, 2019, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 72 x 48 inches/182.9 x 121.9 cm

Blue Purple Shift 22, 2020, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 22 inches/55.9 cm tondo

by

Kakejiku, 2020, pigment and urethane on aluminum, 48 x 16 inches122 x 40.6 cm

Tasogare Kakejiku, 2020, 24k gold, mica, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 48 x 16 inches/122 x 40.6 cm

Oborozuki (A Moon Obscured by Clouds) Purple Faint, 2020, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm

Big Dipper, 2020, micronized silver, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 22 inches/55.9 cm tondo

MIYA ANDO

Miya Ando is an American and Japanese artist known for her metal paintings that encapsulate both ephemerality and permanence. A descendant of Bizen sword makers, Miya Ando spent her childhood among Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan, and later, in California. She combines the traditional techniques of her ancestry with modern industrial technology, skillfully transforming sheets of metal into ephemeral, abstract paintings suffused with color. Working across two and three dimensions, Ando’s oeuvre contains abstract painting and sculpture, including large-scale public pieces that reflect what she calls the transitory essence of life.

Miya Ando has a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended Yale University to study Buddhist iconography and imagery. She apprenticed with a master metalsmith in Japan, followed by a residency at Northern California’s Public Art Academy.

Ando’s work has been shown worldwide, including at the Asia Society Texas Center, Houston; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York; Katzen Arts Center, American University Museum, Washington D.C.; Noguchi Museum, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas; Bronx Museum of the Arts; Queens Museum; Rubin Museum of Art, New York; Spartanburg Art Museum, North Carolina; Grand Rapids Public Museum, Michigan; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, California; Hammond Museum, North Salem, New York; Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art, Georgia; Pensacola Museum of Art, Florida; and the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, California, in a show curated by Nat Trotman of the Guggenheim Museum.

Born in Los Angeles, 1973 | Lives and works in Los Angeles and New York

Left: Miya Ando under an installation of her work at the Noguchi Museum, New York

SUNDARAM TAGORE

GALLERIES

We have been representing established and emerging artists from around the world since 2000. We show work that is aesthetically and intellectually rigorous, infused with humanism and art historically significant. We specialize in paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations with a strong emphasis on materiality. Our artists cross cultural and national boundaries, synthesizing Western visual language with forms, techniques and philosophies from Asia, the Subcontinent and the Middle East. We show this work alongside important work by overlooked women from the New York School. The gallery also has a robust photography program that includes some of the world’s most noted photographers.

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President and curator: Sundaram Tagore

Senior Director, New York: Susan McCaffrey

Director, Singapore: Melanie Taylor

Director, New York: Kathryn McSweeney

Registrar: Julia Occhiogrosso

Designer: Russell Whitehead

Editorial support: Kieran Doherty

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Text © 2020 Sundaram Tagore Gallery

Photographs © 2020 Miya Ando

All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover: July 29 2020 Night 135 Lockdown (Latitude 40.760131, Longitude -73.980127) 39, 2020, dye, micronized pure silver, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm