Hanae Utamura

Hanae Utamura is a Japanese interdisciplinary artist and an educator based in New York and Tokyo.

Her work engages with historical memory, questioning the notion of progress in modernity, ecology and technology.

Utamura’s media include video, performance, installation, and sculpture. She connects human beings and earth, using the physical human body as a conduit. She explores negotiations and conflicts between the human and the non-human, and how all the varieties of the wills of life manifest such as in the field of science. By decentralizing the human perspective, Utamura diversifies historical narratives, and enters the imagination of nature.

She received her Master of Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, and her Bachelor Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Utamura has received support through numerous international residencies and fellowships including Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, Germany), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), PACT Zollverein (Essen, Germany), Art Omi (Hudson, U.S.), Santa Fe Art Institute Residency, Aomori Contemporary Art Center (Japan), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Changdong Art Studio (Seoul, S.Korea), Seoul Art Space_GEUMCHEON (Seoul, S.Korea), Florence Trust (London, U.K.) and more.

She has been awarded the More Art Engaging Artist Fellowship, NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, Shiseido Art Egg Award, Grant program by the Japanese Ministry of Culture, the Pola Art Foundation, UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary Award, and Axis/Florence Trust Award. Utamuras work has been exhibited extensively in Asia, Europe and U.S. She was a visiting scholar at New York University in 2019, supported by Japanese Ministry of Culture, Japanese government as a part of Japan - United States Exchange Friendship Program in the Art.