Miho Morinoue
Miho Kanani Morinoue is a Hawaii based artist living in Holualoa, Hawaii. Raised by two visual artists, Hiroki and Setsuko Morinoue and has an extensive background in both art and dance. She had a 10-year career with Complexions Contemporary Ballet Co. in NYC and has danced with Esse Aficionado, Lar Lubovich, Lee Whitchel and Neo Labos. On separate commissions she has collaborated closely with choreographer Dwight Rhoden, of Complexions Contemporary Ballet Co. as a rehearsal director and costume designer. Her costume designs are represented by, Complexions Contemporary Ballet Co., Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Oakland Ballet, Philadelphia Ballet, Ballet Arizona, Ballet Met, North Carolina Dance Theater, Pittsburgh Ballet, and many others. In 2014 she assisted her father in the set design for the dance piece titled Hikari. Hikari, was an Ordway-commissioned world premiere by choreographer Uri Sands of TU Dance Company in St. Paul, MN.
During her performance career she simultaneously worked on her visual art attentively. Many were small studies and sketches of her environment, Jazz clubs and abstract imagery. Then developing those ideas into larger paintings, mixed media, woodcuts, monotypes and scratched Plexiglas prints.
Making of a Flag, Jazz musicians untitled, Bliss, Falling Up was developed during her vigorous dance career. Her Sleep Series are small paintings of her colleagues while on tour in Europe and throughout the US in 2005. In 2006, she completed her first lithograph “The Cove” at Shark’s Ink. The Cove is a tour de force of drawing and imagination. Taking nearly a year to complete the drawing while touring with Complexions Contemporary Ballet Co. The Cove incorporates portraits of friends and family, Japanese mythology and Hawaiian settings. She then began evolving her Bedroom Series later developing the smaller scaled reductive woodcuts into large 48” X 60” paintings that was exhibited in 2010 through The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center, Honolulu, HI. She has also collaborated with her father Hiroki in creating the woodblock image for her family's coffee label 'Artist Proof'.
Her art can be found in the collections of the Library of Congress, DC, the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY and Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA.
Since 2005 she has been a teaching artist for the Holualoa Foundation for Arts and Culture, also known as The Donkey Mill Art Center. Miho is currently the Youth and Adult Program Coordinator. She also shares her performance experience and is teaching at Kona Dance and Performing Arts.
Miho's lithograph "Deluvium" , 2018 was printed by Shark’s Ink and has been recently acquired by the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
You may view her website for further details on her artwork, view dance images and costume designs.
http://mihomorinoue.com/home.html
Deluvium
Miho Morinoue
Deluvium
2019
Lithograph printed by Master Print Maker
Bud Shark of Shark’s Ink
Ed. 25
37 x 75½"
$3000
Deluvium or deluge is a large-scale lithograph depicting a scene where myth and reality co-exist and co-mingle in the moments preceding a great cleanse. Both dark and whimsical, the narrative explores the relationship between human beliefs and civilization as they relate to the enveloping force of nature that sustains or destroys them.
“The original drawing on Denril began in 2006 during the Bush Jr presidency. I drew inspiration from an earlier drypoint print I made in New Orleans titled Mermaid Lounge. That piece depicted a sprawling scene along the Mississippi river, a tangled surreal reality of poverty, mermaids, drunk liberals, a bit of voodoo, and an homage to Hiroshige’s wave. I revisited the narrative concept on a larger scale in Deluvium; portraying protectors or gods, goddesses, and mythological creatures as they adapt to the worst or best of human behavior and give rise to new and perhaps ordinary heroes.
Frozen in this imaginary scene you may find a Hindu goddess Kali who turns her back and neglects her reverence for humanity, exhausted by the pandemonium. Her trophy necklace of skulls unravels, spilling across the landscape like glass beads on a tile surface and unleashing the ego mocking the silly ways of humanity. In the dark water, Nüwa and Fuxi from the Chinese myth of creation flee from their disastrous attempt at creating a human civilization they hoped would create life anew. The overwhelming chaos of the scene encourages the viewer to allow time to stand still for a moment, enabling them to more fully experience the detail and complexity of the piece.”
Deluvium
Miho Morinoue
Deluvium
2018
Drawing on Vellum
Photographed by: Eric Edwards
Earth Metric I - Entropy
2016
Mokuhanga and Pochoir on Paper
13.5" x 17.5"
Earth Metric I - Entropy was a collaged image inspired by the Syrian war. In this print, the cyclical pattern of creation and destruction is symbolized by the deconstruction of the highly celebrated manifestations of Islamic tile work.
Stand Still like a Hummingbird
Drypoint & Woodcut Print
2007
18”X24”
Frida
2013
Woodcut print on paper
17" x 14"
Second Edition
Frida Kahlo, the Mexican Surrealist painter, is often hailed as one of the most important artists in feminism. Her work dealt with complex themes such as femininity, marriage, disabilities and sexuality most of which was autobiographical. Kahlo's life began and ended in Mexico City, in her home known as the 'Blue House'.
This image of Frida was first created for a gift print that was to be given to the winner of a Frida Kahlo look-alike contest during a Dia de los Muertos event held at the Donkey Mill Art Center in 2010. The original print was a reductive print on handmade paper. The second version was recreated in 2013.
The Cove
2006
Lithograph
Ed. 20 (through Shark’s Ink.)
34 x 42¼"
In 2006, she completed her first lithograph “The Cove” at Shark’s Ink. The Cove is a tour de force of drawing and imagination. Taking nearly a year to complete the drawing while touring with Complexions Contemporary Ballet Co. The Cove incorporates portraits of friends and family, Japanese mythology and Hawaiian settings.
Bliss
Falling Up
Making of the Flag
1995
Mokuhanga (Japanese Woodblock Print)