CONTEMPORARY ARTIST
Figurative, Portrait & Abstract
Acrylic, oil & mixed media paintings
Japanese Calligraphy
Origami & Paper
"I always keep music in mind. My fascination with music and people provides endless inspiration. My work tell the stories. I am delighted to see people when they start smiling while looking at my works. I believe they get my messages."
Midori Furze is a Japanese-born contemporary artist, co-owner of the art space, Laneway Art Depot in Brookvale, Sydney's Northern Beaches. She has been painting professionally for five years and has participated in many exhibitions, including the Warringah Art Prize, Hornsby Art Prize, Northbridge Art Prize and Manly Art Gallery and seven solo exhibitions.
Midori's works are influenced by her Japanese background, having studied calligraphy, Japanese music, literature and visual arts since childhood. She loves music and she gets a lot of inspiration from listening to the music. She paints her dreams and concepts of love and music on her canvas. Her art practice is very unique and it moves between realistic forms to highly illustrative works to the free forms of abstracts.
Midori has also run many innovative community art events with many artists. In 2009, she organised several events with fellow artist, Angela van Boxtel. The events included workshops and exhibition for recycling old make-up products to create portraits, "Make up Your Mind - Lipstick Girls series" and an outdoor T-shirt exhibition, "Womanly", which displayed over 100 t-shirts designed by artists from all over the world across a long clothesline at Manly Beach for the Manly Arts Festival. She also started helping at the Art in Motion group, which runs an art program for Bear Cottage - the children's hospice in Manly, and she coordinates workshops for the children.
Midori was accepted to a residency program at Eramboo Artists Environment, Terrey Hills in 2010. She also taught art classes for the New Horizons program, a division of North Ryde Hospital.
In 2011, Midori had her art studio at Underground Art Space in Balgowlah. She shared the space with 7 other artists. Midori demonstrated a giant origami folding in collaboration with Japanese calligrapher, Hideo Dekura, for a Japan Disaster charity event. She also ran an origami project, "Fold with Love - 1000 paper cranes", for the Sydney Children's Hospital with fellow photographer, Mayu Kataoka. The project was 2011 Sydney Children's Hospital Foundation art program, in partnership with the Sydney Children's Hospital School and Louis Vuitton Australia.
In February 2012 Midori opened a new art studio & exhibition space, Laneway Art Depot with Jeni Robertson and Christine Farkas in Brookvale.
Several "How to Paint" articles, in which Midori shares her knowledge of art, have been published in "Fine Art & Decorative Painting" magazine (Vol. 16 No.10, Vol.16 No.11, Vol.17 No.2, Vol.17 No.3 and Vol.17 No.12).
Midori is a professional member of NAVA-National association of Visual Arts, Pittwater Community Arts and Northern Expressions Artists Group.
Midori's work is held in private and corporate collections in the UK, Europe, USA, Japan and Australia.
She is available for commission work, and her studio is opened by appointment.
"Midori's art practice moves between the highly illustrative style to highly abstracted free formed works [...] the highly realist style and the successful use of negative space in the composition of the work. Midori's statement refers to her love of music and her works are semi auto-biographical in their reference to these pivotal elements in her life."
— Sara Johnson, Curator, Manly Art Gallery & Museum