Photographer Miwa Yanagi

Miwa Yanagi was born in 1967 Kobe City, Japan. She completed her postgraduate course work at the Kyoto City University of Arts (Yanagi). Miwa Yanagi is known mainly as a photographer and video artist. Miwa Yanagi creates an elaborate, thoroughly thought out, and often costly staged event using female models ranging in different ages. These female models may display ages quite different from their own in the photos. After the picture or video is taken, the image may or not be altered by a computer. If the computer is used, then a massive amount of time is spent working on the photo to alter the image in strange ways ( Bergquist ). The large amount of time spent working on the photo also insures that the final piece looks as realistic as possible, and the alterations that are merged with the actual images fit perfectly. The end result is a surrealistic image of everyday life.
Miwa Yanagi was influenced by a teacher in high school who was passionate for his art work. From seeing how passionate he was about his work, she decided to go into art and on to a university. Miwa Yanagi's big break came when she was nominated to be in an exhibition in Germany in 1996 at the Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. It was here that Miwa Yanagi works were exhibited along with other famous artists like Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall. This gave her major opportunity over other Japanese artists because of the international exposure to a commercial art market. In Japan it is hard to be a contemporary modern artist. Many Japanese artists don't know how to sell their art or be financially successful. Information on how to be a contemporary artist in Japan is hard to come by. Not because there are not enough of them but because of a lack of a buyers market and no commercial galleries as seen in other countries like in American or Europe's. Because of lack of a contemporary art market in Japan and her success in Germany in 1996 she decided to display her work overseas (Wakasa ). Many of her photographs have models from Japan. In her later works however the some models have mixed ethnicities. Miwa Yanagi currently works and live in Kyoto, Japan.

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