Profile
Born in Toyama, Japan.
Lives and works in New York City.
Minako was inspired by Michelangelo’s artwork when she was traveling in Italy and decided to study oil painting and graphic design at Musashino Art University in Tokyo. In 2001 she moved to New York City to study artistic human anatomy at the Art Students League of New York where she met her mentor, sculptor Seiji Saito who used to be an assistant of Isamu Noguchi. In 2002 Minako started carving marble and has mastered and utilizes, unlike most modern sculptors, traditional techniques of sculpting stone by hand which is becoming an art form rarity in today’s art world.
After multiple awards, in 2013 she won the public art competition in New York City and created her first monument “Lovers” for the Riverside Park. Since then she has been designing and producing monuments and memorials for parks and gardens which inspired her to study “Public Art for Urban Design” at Harvard University in 2017.
Minako continued her studies, at the Natural Stone Institute in the US, related to the properties and characteristics of natural stones for use in artwork and architecture. She designed landscapes with stone sculptures and performed landmark restorations for artwork and architecture. The concept of all her work is “Art for All.” Her masterpiece “Lovers” will be installed at Toyama sta. in March, 2020.
Public Collections
Riverside Park (New York), The PEARL garden、Edgewater (New Jersey)
Holocaust Memorial garden, Farden in Congregation Ahavath Torah, Englewood (New Jersey), Japanese Red Cross Society hospital, Toyama prefecture, Toyama city