Standing in the Jungle
2024
Acrylic, mixed media on wood panel
48" x 60"
Part of the collection of the State Foundation for Arts and Culture's Arts in Public Places Program

Miho Kanani Morinoue is a Hawaiʻi-based artist living in Hōlualoa. Raised by visual artists Hiroki and Setsuko Morinoue, she carries a rich background in both art and dance. Miho spent a decade performing with Complexions Contemporary Ballet in New York City and has danced with renowned choreographers including Esse Aficionado, Lar Lubovitch, Lee Whitelaw, and Néo Labos. She also worked closely with choreographer Dwight Rhoden, serving as rehearsal director and costume designer for dance companies across the mainland.

Her costume designs have been featured in prominent companies such as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Arizona, BalletMet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and Pittsburgh Ballet. Miho’s artwork is also held in the collections of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts in Hawaiʻi.

Since returning home in 2006, Miho has dedicated herself to teaching dance and visual arts to local youth, working with the Donkey Mill Art Center (The Mill)—home of the Hōlualoa Foundation for Arts and Culture—and with Kona Dance and Performing Arts. Nearly twenty years later, she now serves as Program Director at The Mill, where she is committed to expanding access to the arts, fostering cultural education, and uplifting the voices of the ʻāina and its people.

The Art in Public Places (APP) Program acquires completed, portable works of art, and commissions artists to create works of art for specific locations. Works of art are displayed in over 640 sites statewide including schools, libraries, hospitals, airports, state office buildings, the State Capitol and at Capitol Modern (the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum). The APP Program also supports excellent arts education programming in schools during the school day, out-of-school arts education for pre-K students and lifelong learning for adults.