Stanoff seeks to draw out the natural beauty and elegance in steel through the use of subtle shades of silver and greys in her two-dimensional panels. She uses traditional metal finishing methods such as grinding, sanding, patinas, and the application of heat. She also works with metal-based pigments, solvents, and acids to create the varied textures and surfaces on her pieces. In her work, she explores the themes of solitude, nothingness, and the transitory nature of things.

Her “pieces visually punched a hole in the wall with the rich, dense black pigments and steel underbase. It was as if Mark Rothko had a twin brother that produced monochromatic steel paintings.” – artist Logan Hicks

Miya Ando Stanoff graduated from UC Berkeley in 1996 and attended Yale University where she studied East Asian Buddhist Iconography. Half-Japanese and half-Russian, she was raised bilingually and in two cultures, living both in her family’s Buddhist temple in Japan and in Northern California. She comes from a tradition of metalworking, as she is a descendant of Bizen sword maker Ando Yoshiro Masakatsu. Her studio is in Oakland, California.