Keiko Miyamori is an artist from Japan, based in Brooklyn, New York. She majored in traditional Japanese-style painting in university, and received the Tamon Miki Award for Modern Painting upon completion of her graduate work. She then enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania for a year-long fellowship under the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunka-Cho). Miyamori has shown her work in Japan at the Ueno Royal Museum, Sompo Japan Museum of Art, Art Tower Mito, and the Miyagi Museum of art, among others. In 2000, she then returned to the United States, setting up a studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since then, she has been primarily showing in the United States, as well as in Japan, Germany, and South Korea. Miyamori utilizes nature around her as her medium, using traditional Japanese washi paper, and handmade charcoal that she finds around worksites, as well as creating them herself. Through representing the cycle of a tree in her medium and work, Miyamori is able to allow for creations of connections between her and her surroundings. Her work connects strangers, spanning across generations and physical geography, using herself as a medium to connect themselves to her, and therefore to others, by her use f trees. The inspiration for Miyamori lies in natures. Nature proved to be honest and open with her, allowing for her to use it in her own personal healing. Her use of trees and its life cycle parallels how human emotions are layered. In the many layers of a tree during its long life, peels away its bark, heals through cracks, and sustains itself to persevere through human-made obstacles. To Miyamori, the strength of a tree gave her own self strength. As her layers peel, she continues to grow, merging her fears together with these layers and allowing for them to fade and find peace. She recently completed a residency in Japan over the spring of 2019 at BankART1929 in her hometown of Yokohama, Japan. She returned to the United States to prepare for her upcoming Fall 2019 shows in New York City and Japan.