BIOGRAPHY:

Mitsuo Miura was born in Iwate (Japan) in 1946.
He moved to Spain in 1966 to continue his studies in Fine Arts and made of this country his permanent residence. It is in Spain, therefore, where he has developed his whole artistic trajectory. During his career, Miura has worked with different medium such as nature, painting, engraving, photography, installation and sculpture. Cuenca, Bustarviejo, Almería and Madrid are the most outstanding reference places in the work of the artist.
While living in Cuenca, in the 70s, his formation works were influenced by American abstract expressionism. Later on, he moved to Bustarviejo, in the Sierra of Madrid, where his artistic production is mainly composed of drawings and engravings in which subtle geometrical forms playe a main role. It is in that period when he begins to look both into wooden sculpture and objects.
In 1978 he discovers Los Genoveses beach, in Almería. There, he works during several consecutive summers and develops few photographic series that evoke the experience of landscape and light, the course of time and the daily happenings. Los Genoveses is a necessary reference when talking about Miura's artwork. This experience will flow into the work 120º en la playa de los Genoveses, created in mid 80s and displayed in 1990, in Galería Estampa in Madrid and Galería Trayecto in Vitoria.
It is precisely in mid 80s and beginning of the 90s, when a new pictorial phase arises in Miura's artistic development. The observation of nature becomes then one of the fundamental motives in his work. Soft tones, abstract forms and monochromatic geometry are now the main elements, thus, suggesting the sensitivity of Japanese aesthetics. Later on, in mid 90s, he focuses on new groups of images with the observation of city and urban landscapes, out of which he finds inspiration. Street publicity, urban lights, the stress and haste of city people are shown in collages and paintings from which edging, at times superposed, forms with powerful dynamism and strength come out.
Miura's artistic work is present in the collections of Institutions such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas, Fundación Juan March, Colección La Caixa in Barcelona, Colección Banco de España, Colección Telefónica, etc.
The displayed editions in this exhibition, together with previous editions and original work (painting and photography) belong to ARTIUM's funds.

THE WORK:

Although Mitsuo Miura lives in Spain since the age of eighteen, his work transmits an intense and sensitive emotion closely connected to oriental art. As he reveals, he cannot prevent the deep substrate defining Japanese culture from permeating his artistic work. His first feeling when looking at western art was that of opaqueness, substance, and oil, versus transparency, levity and water inherent in Japanese tradition.
In his work, Miura tries to express his emotions in their pure state, using only visual memory tools such as colour, shape and movement. He does it in a balanced way to avoid contrasts, strikingness and those effects so characteristic to western cultures.

THE TECHNIQUE:

His graphic work and multiples are the result of applying a series of techniques that faithfully reproduce a genuine piece of work a fixed number of times, resulting in what is known as edition. There are different techniques, both, traditional, as engraving, serigraphy or lithography, and current ones, in which technology and industrial processes are involved.
In this exhibition, Mitsuo Miura presents editions of engravings, serigraphy and multiples (installations of objects, ensembles or sculptures from which a settled number of equal copies have been produced).
In the description of the works, details and techniques of each edition are specified.