About Savako

Savako is the stage name of the self-taught artist Sawako Ando. She was born in the Japanese city of Chiba at the height of Japan’s economic growth. She received a strict upbringing which forced her to enjoy comics and cartoons in secret. Her parents wanted their children to be exemplary, causing Savako to struggle with the difference between her true self and the ideal image her parents expected of her. After working as an editor for ten years, a trip to Turkey’s Cappadocia and the Silk Road inspired her to start making artwork. Images of her repressed childhood sensations began to surface.

Once married, she moved to the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. There she works in her spacious studio at the foot of a mountain. The morning mist, rivers and lush shapes of the trees, plants, birds, and insects brings her new inspiration. Inspiring her to use a variety of materials, including wood, metal, and fabric.

Savako’s lively expressive work consists of organic forms that represent a form of life, using the semi-surrealistic language of comic books and children’s toys. The shapes change instinctively and unconsciously respond to social changes and events around them. The first step is to draw a simple shape. Then the shapes are structured in the next stage of her process.

The DAION shown at ARTZUID 2023 is a work that is part of the Hello Golem series. Inspired by nature, the work embodies the presence of the invisible. DAION means ‘loud sound’ in Japanese. The sculpture depicts an enormous force that blows through the round hole in the abdomen together with the wind. The work expresses the hope that there will be an open world in the future. The social stagnation which the world has experienced in recent years reminded Savako of the oppressive outside pressure she felt as a child.
The fact that her work is also popular with the younger generation is evidenced by the fact that she won the Kids’ Choice Award in 2021 during the Australian art festival Sculpture by the Sea in Cottesloe.