Miwa Matreyek

An animator, director, designer, and performer based in Los Angeles. She has been an internationally touring independent artist since 2010. Coming from a background in animation by way of collage, Miwa Matreyek creates live, staged performances where she interacts with her animations as a shadow silhouette, at the cross section of cinematic and theatrical, fantastical and tangible, illusionistic and physical. Her work exists in a dreamlike visual space that makes invisible worlds visible, often weaving surreal and poetic narratives of conflict between man and nature. Her work exists both at the realm of the hand-made and tech. She travel as a one woman show, often incorporating artist talks and workshops. She performs her interdisciplinary shadow performances all around the world, including animation/film festivals, theater/performance festivals, art museums, science museums, tech conferences, and universities. A few past presenters include TED, MOMA, Sundance New Frontier, Lincoln Center, Future of Storytelling, Exploratorium, Adler Planetarium, ISEA conference, Meta.Morph (Norway), Anima Mundi (Brazil), Walker, Wexner, REDCAT, TBA festival, Fusebox Festival, and many more. She received her MFA for Experimental Animation and Integrated Media from CalArts in 2007. She is also a co-founder and collaborator of the multi-media theater company, Cloud Eye Control. She is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award (2013), Sherwood Award (2016), and Princess Grace Award (2007). She has made commissioned performance work (Pop-up magazine), as well as worked as a video designer for the Austin based theater company Rude Mechs, and the Vancouver based Dance company 605 Collective. She also works intermittently as a freelance animator/designer.