Yuki Murata studied architecture at Yale University and earned a master's degree in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design. Murata's heritage as a half-Japanese woman growing up in the United States and Japan also informs her aesthetic and inspires her designs. The red and white palette, the coral imagery and the haphazard stitching suggest both Ms. Murata's biologic and emotional connections to her Japanese heritage.

The natural world, in addition to my body, inspires the motifs. Sea coral, arteries, ant paths, and stitched up scars, billowing clouds, organs, and dusty air all depict the random construction that is our cultural identity and our physical being. As I age, my racial vanity is exposed as I field comments about whether or not I look, seem or act Japanese. It is in these moments that being bi-racial makes me feel split, defensive, and alienated. The work, like one's character, is layered, sutured together, additive, and subtractive.