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Miya Kosowick is a half-Japanese Canadian artist based in London, United Kingdom. She holds a degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of British Columbia and later studied at Chelsea College of Arts, where she began developing an interdisciplinary practice spanning painting, sculpture and installation.
Kosowick’s work explores identity, belonging and the shifting relationship between controlled and natural environments. Drawing on the Japanese philosophical concept of uchi-soto (内外)- meaning “inside” and “outside”- her practice examines how boundaries between interior and exterior spaces, social groups and cultural identities are constructed and negotiated. She is particularly interested in the spaces that exist between such binaries, where ambiguity and transformation can emerge.
Working with materials including rice paper, wax, canvas, wood and found objects, Kosowick creates installations in which paintings function as portals to imagined worlds. Sculptural elements and fragments of material histories often coexist within these environments, blurring distinctions between the natural and the constructed.
Her muted colour palette draws from the landscapes of her upbringing across British Columbia, Japan and the United Kingdom. Through restrained abstract and figurative gestures, Kosowick produces works that resemble fragile archaeological traces - memories suspended between past and future.
Kosowick received the first annual artist commission from The Glenrothes, and continues to expand her practice through installations and cross-disciplinary collaborations that connect art, space and sensory experience.
Kosowick’s work explores identity, belonging and the shifting relationship between controlled and natural environments. Drawing on the Japanese philosophical concept of uchi-soto (内外)- meaning “inside” and “outside”- her practice examines how boundaries between interior and exterior spaces, social groups and cultural identities are constructed and negotiated. She is particularly interested in the spaces that exist between such binaries, where ambiguity and transformation can emerge.
Working with materials including rice paper, wax, canvas, wood and found objects, Kosowick creates installations in which paintings function as portals to imagined worlds. Sculptural elements and fragments of material histories often coexist within these environments, blurring distinctions between the natural and the constructed.
Her muted colour palette draws from the landscapes of her upbringing across British Columbia, Japan and the United Kingdom. Through restrained abstract and figurative gestures, Kosowick produces works that resemble fragile archaeological traces - memories suspended between past and future.
Kosowick received the first annual artist commission from The Glenrothes, and continues to expand her practice through installations and cross-disciplinary collaborations that connect art, space and sensory experience.
Works for sale on auction:
Through the shoji screen
2023
Wax and Acrylic Paint on Panel, Bespoke Plasma-cut Handmade Brackets
28 x 25 cm
(excluding metal frame)
SOLD
Fence
2022
Gouache on Washi Paper
35.5 x 29 cm
SOLD
You walk on desire
2024
Oil on Canvas
90 x 120 cm
Price on Request
About: You walk on desire
This painting is inspired by desire paths, the informal routes created by people and animals through trampling an alternative path over the rigid logic of formal urban planning
(think shortcuts across a field rather than using the pavement). These organic lines reflec a quiet resistance to imposed structures, revealing how collective behaviour can reshape designed environments.The grid of yellow blocks and straight lines suggests the language of maps, infrastructure, and controlled systems. In contrast, the glowy curved lines and
figures stepping beyond these boundaries propose alternative networks, softer, adaptive pathways. The fragmented text “you walk on desire” reflects my interest in how language
operates visually. By disrupting the phrase across the surface, I want to loosen fixed meaning and allow associations to form intuitively, much like desire paths themselves.
About: Through the shoji screen
This work explores my interest in the Japanese concept of uchi/soto, the distinction between inside (uchi) and outside (soto), which describes not only physical space but als social relationships. The painting depicts two hunched figures turned away from the viewer, positioned beneath a subtle grid sealed in wax. As viewers, we occupy the positio of the outsider, looking in as if through a shoji screen, observing a space we cannot fully enter. The work extends beyond painting into sculpture. It is supported by handmad plasma-cut steel brackets which have naturally rusted over time. These supports act not only as functional elements but as temporal markers, their slow oxidation suggesting the passage of time and material change. In contrast, the figures appear suspended in a moment of stillness, held within a liminality.
About: Fence
Painted in gouache on delicate washi paper, this work reflects my ongoing fascination with Western domestic architectural features, particularly the Victorian iron fences commonly
found bordering terraced houses. The fence appears slightly bent and irregular, reflecting its origin as a study of a sculpture I previously welded. In that sculptural work, intentionally introduced subtle distortions, making the form appear slightly “wrong” or unsettled. This gesture became a way of thinking about belonging and authenticity, the tension between imitation and misalignment when attempting to fit within an unfamiliar
context. Translating this form into paint on fragile washi paper introduces another layer o vulnerability. The material contrast between the implied strength of iron and the delicacy of paper mirrors ideas of stability and fragility, permanence and transition.
This painting is inspired by desire paths, the informal routes created by people and animals through trampling an alternative path over the rigid logic of formal urban planning
(think shortcuts across a field rather than using the pavement). These organic lines reflec a quiet resistance to imposed structures, revealing how collective behaviour can reshape designed environments.The grid of yellow blocks and straight lines suggests the language of maps, infrastructure, and controlled systems. In contrast, the glowy curved lines and
figures stepping beyond these boundaries propose alternative networks, softer, adaptive pathways. The fragmented text “you walk on desire” reflects my interest in how language
operates visually. By disrupting the phrase across the surface, I want to loosen fixed meaning and allow associations to form intuitively, much like desire paths themselves.
About: Through the shoji screen
This work explores my interest in the Japanese concept of uchi/soto, the distinction between inside (uchi) and outside (soto), which describes not only physical space but als social relationships. The painting depicts two hunched figures turned away from the viewer, positioned beneath a subtle grid sealed in wax. As viewers, we occupy the positio of the outsider, looking in as if through a shoji screen, observing a space we cannot fully enter. The work extends beyond painting into sculpture. It is supported by handmad plasma-cut steel brackets which have naturally rusted over time. These supports act not only as functional elements but as temporal markers, their slow oxidation suggesting the passage of time and material change. In contrast, the figures appear suspended in a moment of stillness, held within a liminality.
About: Fence
Painted in gouache on delicate washi paper, this work reflects my ongoing fascination with Western domestic architectural features, particularly the Victorian iron fences commonly
found bordering terraced houses. The fence appears slightly bent and irregular, reflecting its origin as a study of a sculpture I previously welded. In that sculptural work, intentionally introduced subtle distortions, making the form appear slightly “wrong” or unsettled. This gesture became a way of thinking about belonging and authenticity, the tension between imitation and misalignment when attempting to fit within an unfamiliar
context. Translating this form into paint on fragile washi paper introduces another layer o vulnerability. The material contrast between the implied strength of iron and the delicacy of paper mirrors ideas of stability and fragility, permanence and transition.
