Miromi... ninja by day and artist by night – or in between meals and whenever she can jot anything down. Deeply inspired by music and the world around her, she spits out comics, drawings, paintings, and graphics – but pen and ink are her one true love.

Where did you grow up and when did you first start to draw?

There are so many places that I can call my home. I grew up all around the United States, never staying for more than a few years in any one place, but it is really New York city that I think of as my spiritual home. I know that the place has changed in the last fifteen years, but that was the place that shaped me, for good and bad.

And then after that Berlin, the second longest time I have lived in a place. What a wonderful city! I had so many ups and downs there like in New York, but it was really there that I became a woman and discovered so many things that I would never have done had I remained in the United States: cheerleading, break dancing, drum and bass, breakcore, summers on the Spree and bicycling to underground parties at the break of dawn.

Drawing has always been with me. I can't even remember where it started. I think it's a form of therapy...

What inspires you to create your artworks?

There are so many things – mostly people inspire me, the people around me. They can be so interesting, so good and bad at the same time, and they have so many dreams. Lately it's also been Truman Capote and of course Japanese woodblock prints, as well as all the great graphic design I see in Los Angeles. And like I said, music.

You are currently living in LA, how does the scene there compare to your once-home Berlin?

Parts of Los Angeles are surprisingly similar to Berlin. I guess boys wear skinny pants and have beards wherever you go nowadays. Both are so colorful and interesting, but I would say that Los Angeles is pure anarchy compared to Berlin, and as free and wild as Berlin is, there's a certain logic and orderliness, even in the squats.

In L.A. anything could happen. Bad things, good things. And the sunlight glares so much, it hides the tragedy, everything's so bright here. Los Angeles definitely has very very dark moments though. I would say that there never seemed to be such extremes in Berlin, at least not in my eyes, although Berlin is a really wacky place.

www.miromi.org