Miki Asai

Miki Asai is a graduate from the Silversmithing and Jewellery department, Glasgow School of Art. She has won several awards for her work during her studies, including the Prize for Graduation Work at Musashino Art University 2011, Japan Jewellery Designers Associations Student Class Award 2012, Japan Craft Design Association Student Class 2014, The Goldsmiths’ Craft & Design Council Awards 2016 Design Section Pearl Jewellery Award and the Japan Jewellery Design Association General Category 2017.

Miki's intricate jewellery collection is strongly based on the Japanese aesthetic that finds beauty in impermanence, imperfection, transience and the ephemeral.

'My work is based on the Japanese philosophical concept called Wabi-sabi, which means finding beauty in imperfection and transience. I read a book on the subject that said, ‘things are beautiful because they are fleeting.’ This can apply to various aspects of life, whether it be emotions or something as simple as a bunch of leaves in the street. The fact that everything will one day be nothing is beautiful; flowers grow up and then they die, that is the nature of life.'

Miki Asai's work features in A Japanese Design, 30 July - 29 August 2020.