Miao Tan ARWS is a London-based artist working across sculpture, mixed-media drawing, and collage. Her practice is driven by a dedicated exploration of materials and their intrinsic qualities. She believes that close observation of material behaviour offers new ways of understanding the body, time, and social relations.
Whether in works on paper or sculpture, her practice is a continuous inquiry into the life of materials. In her works on paper and collage, thought and action are inseparable, in direct dialogue with the material. In her lacquer-based sculpture, this inquiry unfolds in a slower, deeper register. The slow, layered, and irreversible transformation of natural lacquer draws her in: it resists, responds, and deforms as it dries, yet becomes impenetrable once cured, fluidity and stability coexisting within the same substance. For Miao, this paradoxical coexistence bears an inherent structural resemblance to the way bodies, gender, and identity are shaped and gradually solidified through social relations.
Her work has been exhibited at Alcova, Milan Design Week and featured in Aesthetica and Whitehot Magazine. She is an Associate Member of the Royal Watercolour Society (ARWS), elected in 2025, and a recipient of the RWS New Graduate Award 2023.