Reiko Muranaga

Reiko Muranaga [Pronounced: lay•ko]
When I was in high school in Tokyo, I had to choose between art or music. I chose art and nearly flunked. I became bored with art class. During outdoor sketching, I watched ants move busily near where I was sitting or read a novel hidden under my sketch pad. I hardly turned in my assignments.

I moved to USA in my twenties, lived and went to school in the midwest for as a German major. I then studied at Hamburg University in Germany on a scholarship. I began to write a series of essays including an art critique. The latter won me a national prize from a small literally magazine. I planned to be a writer. After some life-changing events during 1987 - 1989; one day, out of blue, I had the urge to draw. I joined Fort Mason Art Center's drop-in life drawing classes, paying only $3 per 3 hour session, while working as a trilingual technical interpreter. Nine months later, after doing over one thousand drawings, I was accepted at Stanford University's non-matriculated graduate program with my portfolio of half a dozen figure drawings. I knew neither the difference between oil and acrylic nor who Nathan Olivera was until I went to the Bay Area Figurative Artists exhibit at de Young Museum.

People ...

EDUCATION

Stanford University, CA. Non-matriculated Graduate Student (Fine Arts). Studied with Nathan Oliveira.

Purdue University, IN. B.A. : German. Graduated with highest distinction. Awarded life member of Phi Kappa Phi.

Hamburg University, Germany. Two-year scholarship from Purdue University.

Current
Corporate Exhibit
June-September 2014
Lennar Urban, San Francisco
By appointment only
Upcoming
Fall Open Studio 2014
October 18 & 19, 2014
11AM - 6PM
Open to the public

Past
Solo Exhibit
Letter to Monet series
Art People Gallery
San Francisco
December 2011