Born in Japan and based in Chicago, Mie Kongo develops a sculptural practice centered on materiality, structure, and the relationships between elements. Her work emerges through processes of assemblage in which multiple materials come into contact and form contingent relationships, shaped by their physical properties—weight, friction, surface, edge, and resistance. Porcelain occupies a central place in her practice. Historically associated with domestic and craft traditions, Kongo approaches it as a structural and sculptural material, exploring its physical and symbolic qualities beyond its traditional function. By combining porcelain with wood, metal, 3D-printed plastic, felt, fabric, glass, acrylic, oil paint, and other materials, she creates abstract compositions in which handmade and industrial processes, rigidity and softness, precision and chance coexist. Her process is characterized by a sustained tension between order and spontaneity. Rather than beginning with a fully predetermined form, Kongo allows her works to develop through experimentation, repetition, and adjustment. Minor shifts, interruptions, misalignments, and unexpected encounters between materials become fundamental elements of the composition. The resulting structures evoke architectural models or systems in formation, in which balance, proportion, rhythm, and tension remain deliberately open. Craft is an essential component of her practice, understood both as a visual language and as a method of thinking. Her approach brings together precision and play, design and discovery, seeking a point at which individual elements achieve an autonomous relationship without losing their ambiguity. In this sense, Kongo understands making as a form of inquiry: a process of observation and learning in which the work is constructed through direct engagement with its materials. Kongo received a B.A. in Art History from Roosevelt University, a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an M.F.A. in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She is Adjunct Full Professor in the Ceramics Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she has taught since 2009. Her work has been presented in solo and two-person exhibitions at institutions and galleries across the United States, including 65Grand in Chicago, The Landing in Los Angeles, and Tri-Star Arts in Knoxville. In 2026, she presented Straight Lines and Fragments of Elliptical Lines at 65Grand and was featured in the Cranbrook Alumni Exhibition in Detroit. Her work has also been presented at art fairs including EXPO Chicago, NADA Miami, and ARCO Madrid. In 2021, she was awarded a Joan Mitchell Fellowship, and throughout her career she has participated in residencies at institutions including the European Ceramic Workcenter in the Netherlands and Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Japan.