Miwa Yanagi was born in 1967 in Kobe, Japan. She completed her postgraduate course work at the Kyoto City University of Arts.[1] She is known mainly as a photographer and video artist. She creates an elaborate,and often costly staged event using female models ranging in different ages. After the picture or video is taken, the image may be altered with computer graphics.[2] Her artworks examines self-images and stereotypes of Japanese women in contemporary Japanese society.[3]
Yanagi was influenced by a teacher in high school who was passionate for his artwork. She decided to go into art at Kyoto City University of Arts. After graduating from Kyoto City University of Arts, she began working as a teacher where she began to realize that she was not individualized but rather forced to play an ordinary role of a woman teacher.[4] Her big break came when she was nominated to be in an exhibition in Germany in 1996 at the Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. It was here that her works were exhibited along with artists like Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall. The international exposure to a commercial art market gave her major advantage over other Japanese artists. Because of the lack of a contemporary art market in Japan and her success in Germany in 1996 she decided to display her work overseas.[5] Yanagi currently works and lives in Kyoto, Japan.