Mizuki Nishiyama is a mixed-Japanese artist based in Hong Kong whose practice bridges Eastern and Western traditions to explore identity, ancestry, and the fragile human condition through the lens of the female experience. Drawing from her Japanese, Hong Kong, and Italian heritage, she creates a hybrid visual language that transcends cultural boundaries while remaining grounded in material and philosophical depth.

Her work integrates East Asian materials and aesthetics—sumi ink, ancestral soil, burning, cutting, and sewing with contemporary Western techniques, engaging concepts such as wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection), ura (the hidden or shadowed), and yūgen (mysterious, profound beauty). These methods form a dialogue between body, environment, and memory, where natural elements act as both material and metaphor. Ancestral soil, excavated from her family’s land in Japan and tied to histories of purification and ritual, is a recurring presence in her paintings and tapestries.

In painting, Nishiyama incorporates this soil into pigments and cuts through viscous oils with knives, balancing violence and tranquility. In textile works, she buries and revives fabrics through fire, soil, teas, and traditional distressing techniques such as Sashiko and Boro, enacting cycles of life, death, and rebirth. Her ongoing series, Bodies in Landscape, expands on Zen ink traditions and Daoist philosophies of interdependence, situating the female body within nature as a site of trauma, resilience, and transformation. Through this synthesis of material, philosophy, and cultural memory, Nishiyama’s work invites viewers into a poetic contemplation of impermanence, hybridity, and the enduring spirit of the human body in landscape.

Currently a PhD student at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA), Nishiyama also holds an MFA from Central Saint Martins and a BFA from Parsons School of Design. Her solo exhibitions include Shunga (Whitestone Gallery, Hong Kong, 2020), An Exploration of Human Fragility: Love & Lust (Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, 2020), and 脆い Moroi: An Exploration of Human Fragility (Greenpoint Gallery, New York, 2019).

Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?


My name is Mizuki Nishiyama. I am half Japanese and half Chinese, and I grew up in Hong Kong. My parents spent a period of their lives in Italy, so Hong Kong, Japan, and Italy each carry a sense of home for me in different ways. Later on, I lived in New York, London, and Milan before returning to Hong Kong, where I am now based.
 I come from a family of artists, including painters, musicians, and traditional Japanese dancers. Creativity was always part of daily life, and I was encouraged from an early age to explore whatever forms of expression felt true to me. Over time, painting became the language through which I could articulate the emotions and questions I didn’t yet have words for.

How do you stay inspired and motivated to create new work?

I am currently exploring East Asian philosophies and aesthetics, weaving them into the figurative and abstract language I have developed over the years. There is still so much I do not know about Chinese and Japanese ways of thinking about life, beauty, and time, and that sense of curiosity keeps me moving. I often look into the past because I am deeply interested in memory, ancestry, and the continuity of time, but I am equally invested in imagining what these ideas could mean for the future, especially through a feminine perspective.

I stay motivated through a very instinctive and primal urge to create. Even when a painting is finished, it might not feel finished to me internally. I may keep thinking about its narrative, its structure, its technical decisions. The work continues to live in my mind long after I stop adding to it physically. That constant dialogue keeps me inspired.

Who or what are your biggest influences, both artistically and personally?


My mother and my grandmother have been my greatest influences. They are both painters but work in completely different styles. My grandmother was a traditional Nihonga painter whose delicate still lifes and natural imagery taught me the beauty of subtlety and patience. My mother, who trained in Italy, paints landscapes that merge Chinese and Italian styles. 

Being raised around such different artistic sensibilities taught me to stay fluid in my own way of working. In hindsight, I can see how aspects of both their styles at times surface in my paintings.

Are there any particular mediums you prefer working with? Why?

I am primarily an oil painter. I love the viscosity and depth of the material and the way oil paint holds light and color. It has a sensual and tactile quality that feels alive to me. Oil allows for both delicacy and intensity. I can build, scrape, soften, or rupture the surface.
I work often with palette knives, using them to slice through layers or expose what lies beneath. Technically, this creates a rawness I am drawn to. Philosophically, it echoes my interest in memory, fragmentation, and how the body carries trauma. The surface becomes a place where rupture and repair coexist.

What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?


I have experienced artist’s block many times. When that happens, I usually need to remove myself from the situation, the studio, or even the idea I am trying to force. There have been projects I abandoned midway or rejected completely because they no longer felt right. I am often in conflict with myself, which can feel difficult, but it is also part of why I became an artist. The work demands a kind of personal growth that can only happen through confronting that tension.

What do you hope people take away from your art when they experience it?


My work explores the human experience, and while that is always subjective, I believe there is a shared emotional terrain we all encounter. Intensity, longing, grief, tenderness. I can in no way provide solutions or opinions. I only hope to influence a state of mind where viewers can seek their own reflections.

Earlier in my practice, my work was very direct, with visceral bodies and deep reds and blacks that confronted the viewer immediately. Recently, I have been drawn to a more subtle approach. I am integrating ink with oil paint and exploring themes of transience, impermanence, and ideas like Wu Wei, or effortless action. This creates a different kind of tension, one that allows viewers to enter the work quietly and gradually. Ultimately, I hope people leave with the feeling that the painting met them somewhere honest and intimate.

Text & photo courtesy of Mizuki Nishiyama

Website: https://www.mizukinishiyama.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miznegi/