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 in 2011, Japan Jewellery Designers Associations (JJDA) Student Class Award 2012, Japan Craft Sesign Association (JCDA) Student Class 2014, BKV-PRIZE 2015 for Young Applied Arts Finalist (Munich), The Goldsmiths’ Craft & Design Council Awards 2016 Design Section 2D Pearl Jewellery Bronze Award, and the Japan Jewellery Design Associations (JJDA) General Category 2017. 

Her aesthetics and concept are 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.'