01 /Drawing
About Miho Tamaki
Miho Tamaki is a Japanese illuminated manuscript artist based in Tokyo.
Medieval manuscripts were more than works of art. They carried knowledge, ideas, beliefs, and stories across time, from one generation to the next.
Tamaki seeks to carry that role forward.
Working with parchment, pigments, gold leaf, and traditional techniques, she draws on the visual language of medieval European manuscripts to give form to contemporary questions — how we live with one another, what we inherit from the past, what we choose to question, and what we wish to pass on.
Her aim is not to recreate the Middle Ages, but to make the manuscript a living form once again.
Each work is, in this sense, a new manuscript.
Craft
Tamaki’s work is rooted in the materials and techniques of medieval European manuscript illumination. Parchment, pigments, inks, and genuine gold leaf remain at the heart of her practice.
But her aim is not to reproduce a medieval manuscript exactly as it would have been made centuries ago. She respects the tradition while developing her own way of working, choosing materials and methods — historical or modern — according to the needs of each work and the way it will be shared with people today.
What remains essential is the human hand.
Drawing, painting, laying gold, burnishing — each process leaves subtle variations that belong to the work itself. Tamaki continues to value the time, skill, and physical presence of making something by hand.
02 /APPLYING SIZE
03 /LAYING GOLD
04 /PAINTING
Coming Soon
Matrimoine
Matrimoine is an ongoing series of illuminated works, conceived as a manuscript for the next generation.
Drawing on the visual language of medieval manuscripts, the project explores what we inherit from the past, what we choose to question, and what we wish to pass on.
The first work will be revealed soon.
Archive
Selected commissioned pieces and ealier works, now held in private collections.