Ayako Miyawaki, reconstructing the World my Way

Ayako Miyawaki was a Japanese artist born in 1905 and passed away in 1995. Married and mother of three, she lived in Nagoya with her husband, Haru Miyawaki, who was also a painter. In 1945, shortly after World War II, she began her artistic work. During the war, from which she had to protect her children, she felt the need to create "something". She began to develop her skills, focusing on "appliqué", a traditional textile technique that consists of sewing several pieces of material onto a larger surface. Her artwork has been classified in many ways: as applique, collage, handicraft, etc., but it creates a rich world that cannot be contained in any of these categories. Her motifs were things she saw every day as a housewife, such as vegetables and fish, which she carefully observed, sometimes breaking them or taking them apart to show their structure. Each piece bears her signature, stitched in the shape of a Japanese A (あ), which represents the first letter of her name and also evokes the interjection "Ah!", highlighting the joys of creating what she herself called an art of "wonder."