Songs of a Little Bird presents the richly layered textile and mixed-media works of Akiko Suzuki, an internationally recognized fiber artist whose practice bridges contemporary art quilting, poetry, and intuitive mark-making.
Suzuki’s works emerge from an interior landscape, where sensation precedes language and emotion arrives before thought. Through paint, collage, stitching, and fiber, she gives form to the invisible: fleeting thoughts, skin memory, eros, love, and the quiet presentiments that hover just beneath consciousness. These works feel less constructed than discovered, unfolding like verses written directly onto cloth.
Words play a central role in Suzuki’s process. Poetry often arises organically from the flood of imagery in her studio practice, and these intuitive phrases sometimes become the titles of her pieces, guiding viewers toward an emotional rather than literal reading. Her affinity for film and video further informs her work, allowing feeling and narrative to move fluidly across media.
Born in Osaka, Japan, Suzuki studied Visual Design at Kyoto Art College, where she explored photography, video, and three-dimensional creation before turning to quilt making in 1990. She has since become a pioneering voice in contemporary quilt practice, earning numerous awards in Japan and internationally, and exhibiting in both private and public collections worldwide.
Since 2014, Suzuki has been a founding member of the Global Art Project, an international mixed-media collaborative co-operative produced by Carl Heyward. Through this work, she has participated in exhibitions, workshops, and collaborative studio environments across Italy, the United States, Mexico, and Senegal.
Songs of a Little Bird invites viewers to slow down, listen closely, and enter a space where material becomes language, and where poetry finds its voice in cloth.
Poetry visualized in works as abstractions through paint, collage, sewing, and fiber.
