Marine Layer

-ON DISPLAY NOW-

Artist: Miki Iwasaki

Website
Instagram

Location: Across from Metson Lake, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
See map

Installation date: August 2026

Partners: San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, Building 180

Photo credits: Render by Building 180; artist headshot by Charles Bergquist

Marine Layer, by Miki Iwasaki, is a corten steel sculpture that captures shifting atmosphere through form, light, and pattern. Its perforated surface filters the surrounding environment, allowing sky, water, and passing light to become part of the work.

At Metson Lake, where reflections and movement are constant, the sculpture changes with its conditions. What appears solid becomes porous, and what feels still begins to shift with light, wind, and the water’s surface. Iwasaki’s practice bridges architecture, art, and material exploration, transforming industrial materials into spatial, atmospheric experiences.

Here, Marine Layer invites viewers to slow down and notice the subtle transitions that shape the landscape, where perception is always in flux.

Big Art Loop is fiscally sponsored by Five Ton Crane. Please indicate that your gift is for Big Art Loop.

Marine Layer

-ON DISPLAY NOW-

Artist: Miki Iwasaki

Website
Instagram

Location: Across from Metson Lake, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
See map

Installation date: August 2026

Partners: San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, Building 180

Photo credits: Masaki Omori; artist headshot by Charles Bergquist

Marine Layer, by Miki Iwasaki, is a corten steel sculpture that captures shifting atmosphere through form, light, and pattern. Its perforated surface filters the surrounding environment, allowing sky, water, and passing light to become part of the work.

At Metson Lake, where reflections and movement are constant, the sculpture changes with its conditions. What appears solid becomes porous, and what feels still begins to shift with light, wind, and the water’s surface. Iwasaki’s practice bridges architecture, art, and material exploration, transforming industrial materials into spatial, atmospheric experiences.

Here, Marine Layer invites viewers to slow down and notice the subtle transitions that shape the landscape, where perception is always in flux.

Big Art Loop is fiscally sponsored by Five Ton Crane. Please indicate that your gift is for Big Art Loop.

Artist Miki Iwasaki stands outdoors in front of large trees and a modern, perforated metal sculpture. There is a bush with red flowers on the left side of the image.
Close-up of a man, artist Miki Iwasaki, with a shaved head wearing a black shirt, standing outdoors with blurred background of trees and structures.

About the Artist

Miki Iwasaki is an artist and designer raised in Southern California and currently living in San Diego. His curiosity in making and building things eventually led him to pursue a career in architecture, and attend California State Polytechnic University in Pomona California. Miki also studied for a year at the Kyushu Institute of Design in Fukuoka, Japan and received his Masters in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His architectural experience includes work in New York, Los Angeles, and San Diego firms, and spans a variety of project types including residential, office, restaurant, retail, and gallery work. Throughout his academic and early professional years, Miki remained dedicated to his own art projects and furniture designs. Miki’s interests and skills constantly expand in the field of architecture, art and design as he pushes himself to explore new materials, methods and projects.

A park scene with large trees and green grass, featuring a modern, geometric, orange-brown sculpture in the center.
Large rust-colored metal sculpture with perforations, set against tall green trees and a cloudy sky, with a few people in the background.
A group of five people standing outdoors in front of a large metal sculpture, surrounded by trees and greenery.
Trees in a forest with a grassy clearing, a person with an orange umbrella walking, and a geometric sculpture in the background.
Rust-colored metal sculpture with perforations, shaped in a looping curvilinear form, set outdoors with trees and a grassy area in the background.
Close-up of a rust-colored metal sculpture with multiple circular holes arranged in a pattern, outdoors with blurred greenery in the background.