Secret Nature
Misako Inaoka
November, 2006
San Francisco Chronicle -Misako Inaoka (November 2006) written by Kenneth Baker
To arouse notions of existence and coexistence, Misako Inaoka constructs environments that are rooted in the reality of vanishing species and mutating nature. Her minuscule sculptures and site-specific installations force viewers to focus on small details and to take a harder look at their surroundings. Her world is not a creation of total imagination, but is a hybrid of the artificial and the actual.
Misako Inaoka's interests arise from the boundary between what we call natural and artificial. She observes the physical and social environment in detail, to find hidden beauty and peculiarity-- things such as a cell phone antenna in the shape of a pine tree, birds that are not native to the area, or moss growing in a crack of cement sidewalk. Inaoka emphasize these subtle details and exaggerates their illogicality to cultivate her own version of invented creatures.
Misako Inaoka lives and works in San Francisco. She received her MFA from Mills College in 2006 and has exhibited extensively in the Bay Area. Inaoka has had solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, ATA, and the Back Room Gallery, and has been in numerous group exhibitions including: at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Walter and McBean Galleries, The LAB, Southern Exposure and Quotidian Gallery.
