Aya Oki Salinas is a Japanese glass artist whose practice is rooted in glassblowing and a close dialogue with the materiality of glass. For Oki, glassblowing is not simply a technique. It is a way of thinking. She does not just use glassblowing to make an idea but to find the idea through the process of working with the material. Rather than approaching molten glass as something to fully control, she works with it as a responsive material shaped through breath, gravity, heat, and time. She values handwork, material sensitivity, experimentation and the process of making as much as the final result.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass, Homo Faber in Venice, and the LOEWE Foundation Craft Prize exhibition in Paris. Her work is held in collections including the Renwick Gallery
of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Corning Museum of Glass, Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Imagine Museum and Museum of American Glass.
Oki has taught, demonstrated and participated in residencies at institutions including Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Craft, the Corning Museum
of Glass, and Museum of Glass in Tacoma. Travel and teaching are also important parts of Oki’s artistic practice. Working in different studios and with different communities continues to shape how she thinks about glass, teamwork and making.
Her work and practice have also been featured in publications and media including the Corriere della Sera, Art for Everyone by Oxford University Press, New Glass Now and 100 Glass Artists: Elites of Contemporary Japan. She is also one of a select number of artists featured in the forthcoming book Secrets from The Studio, to be published by the Corning Museum of Glass in 2027.
Oki studied glass at Aichi University of Education in Japan and earned her MFA in Glass from Rochester Institute of Technology.