Saya Moriyasu

Saya Moriyasu has exhibited at venues including the Henry Art Gallery (Gift Shop Project), the Bellevue Arts Museum, Aqua Art Miami, IC Gallery in Los Angeles and Montserrate College of Art in Beverly, Massachussetts. After graduating with an BFA from the University of Washington, Saya was awarded residencies at Skowhegan and at Pilchuck Glass School. She is a member of SOIL Artist-Run Gallery and is represented by G. Gibson Gallery. Her work is often comprised of many small pieces that make up a larger piece, in clay, wood, prints, and other materials.

Saya received 2011 GAP Award funding for materials, kiln firing, documentation, and delivery of the work to the venues as well as some of her time to create new work.

Saya received 2006 GAP Award funding to create new work and upgrade workspace to accommodate the new work. She plans to complete a work in progress that consists of oversized, three-dimensional chandeliers that are based on scenes in Japanese landscape paintings. The new work will draw from ideas and materials of a previous work titled Lamplight Lavish Gathering. The work will be on display at Gallery4Culture, Seattle, in October of 2006.

Saya received 2003 GAP Award funding to help defray costs for a show at the Northwest Craft Center Gallery, including kiln firing, promotional materials, and documentation. Saya works with ceramics and her upcoming piece, Ghost Banquet, expands upon a previous body of work, Service, which is comprised of a series of rotating “clay figures that all have to do with serving.” In the new work, the servers will be of the banquet variety, meant to serve without being noticed. “I am interested in servers as observers of events in other people’s lives. The Ghost Servers (all white clay holding trays) will be in a large circle rotating one direction and in the middle will be the restaurant patrons (a colorful, lively group in miniature) rotating in the opposite direction.