Biography
Emi Hamano (born 1990, Tokyo) is a Japanese printmaker whose intaglio practice combines two-plate, two-colour etching with an exacting geometric vocabulary, producing small-format works in the 22.5 × 22.5 cm range that recall the precisionist tradition of mid-century European intaglio while remaining grounded in Tokyo's contemporary print scene. Her selection for the 3rd PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale 2022, held at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, placed her within the Kansai print-triennial circuit alongside her ongoing Tokyo gallery practice.
Hamano completed her training at Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geidai), graduating from the Department of Painting, Oil Painting Major, in 2013, and completing a graduate degree in the department's Print Research Studio in 2015. The Geidai Painting Department's printmaking studio is one of the principal Japanese print-training environments and has produced a recognisable cohort of younger Tokyo intaglio specialists.
Her mature practice centres on small etched plates — often two-plate, two-colour work on Arches or shin-torinoko paper — with an emphasis on geometric line, repeat structure, and thin, controlled colour. Hamano describes her work as an exploration of the order that emerges from the accumulation of lines, tracing natural patterns such as wind moving through grassland or the shape of magnetic field lines. A representative work is the two-plate etching 'lines (e.l)' (2014, 22.5 × 22.5 cm, on Arches paper).
Her exhibitions are concentrated at Open Letter (Tokyo), with the solo shows 'form / category' (June 28 – August 30, 2015) and 'Trace of Uncertainty' (2017); she has also exhibited with Gallery Soumei-do (Soumei-do Contemporary) in Jimbocho, Tokyo. Group exhibitions include the 38th University Print Exhibition at the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts (2013), the G9 Exhibition in Tokyo and Kyoto (2013), and 'MIRAGE' at the Metal Art Museum, Hikari no Tani (Light Valley), Chiba (2014), as well as her graduation and completion exhibitions at Tokyo University of the Arts.
Her works are held in the public collections of Teikyo University and the Metal Art Museum, Hikari no Tani (Chiba). Hamano represents a category of younger Tokyo printmakers whose deep technical commitment to intaglio and small-format precisionist line-and-colour etching has produced a small but rigorous body of work, with a particular gravitational pull toward Open Letter and Gallery Soumei-do as her gallery base.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1990
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Subjects
- Geometric
- Works Indexed
- 6
Frequently Asked Questions
Emi Hamano (born 1990, Tokyo) is a Japanese printmaker whose intaglio practice combines two-plate, two-colour etching with an exacting geometric vocabulary, producing small-format works in the 22.5 × 22.5 cm range that recall the precisionist tradition of mid-century European intaglio while remaining grounded in Tokyo's contemporary print scene. Her selection for the 3rd PATinKyoto Print Art Triennale 2022, held at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, placed her within the Kansai print-triennial circuit alongside her ongoing Tokyo gallery practice.
Emi Hamano was active born in 1990. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Emi Hamano's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.
Emi Hamano's prints frequently feature geometric.
