Insta: @yao.mikami
Yao Mikami was born in Gifu, Japan. Currently residing in Byron Bay, Australia. She studied at the Nagoya Zokei University of Art and Design. And in Minerva Art Academy in Groningen, Netherlands for a 6-month exchange program. Yao worked at the gallery Intro Art for 3 years in Nagoya City in Japan as a gallery assistant. In 2012 she moved to Australia to start a retreat center. She is one of the founders and project manager of the Art in Paradise organization which runs a residential art retreat at Byron Hinterland retreat center in NSW. She managed to host 15 art retreats from 2014 – 2020. Organizing art retreats and bringing international artists who came to teach at her retreat leads to learning more about materials, not only techniques. She learned how to paint in oil and egg tempera, how to make painting mediums and my own painting from pigments. It leads to research on natural pigment extraction by self and Japanese painting pigments. Using natural pigment inspired her to be in touch with nature. Her paintings evolve with exploration of mixing painting techniques and materials between east and west.
