A native of Tokyo, Japan, Michi Susan has called Oklahoma home for 40 years and has made many contributions to the artist community throughout the years. By the age of five, she knew she wanted to be an artist and went on to study visual art at Japan’s Women’s University and Hosei University. After moving to the United States, Michi continued her studies at the University of Arizona and shortly after began cultivating her prolific career in the arts in Shreveport, Louisiana.
She was first attracted to the work of the realists, but would eventually explore collage and mixed media, blending the delicate and detailed with a variety of materials and processes; primarily paper. Michi’s well known mixed media work is inspired by her Japanese heritage and includes expressions of her many years studying haiku, sculpture and ancient Japanese and Chinese symbols. Ultimately she believes “everyone interprets art differently and it speaks to people in many ways – if you feel a certain way from somebody’s painting, that’s it.”
In 1978, Michi decided to make the move from Shreveport to Oklahoma City; and established her reputation as an award-winning mixed media artist. She is internationally recognized and is included in many private and corporate collections. She received the Paseo Arts Association’s Artist of the Year Award in 2007 and due to her commitment and contributions to the local arts community, the organization would later name an award after her.