Biography
Aya Hatanaka (born 1994) is an early-career Japanese printmaker who works principally in mezzotint, a technique she has pursued since 2018. She trained at Hiroshima City University, one of the regional Japanese art universities outside the Tokyo and Kyoto axes, earning a BA in fine arts (oil painting) in 2019 and completing her MA there in 2021; she also served as a teaching assistant in the university's printmaking workshop from 2019 to 2021. Mezzotint, her chosen medium, is one of the most demanding intaglio techniques: the entire copper plate is first roughened with a rocker tool to produce a velvety dark ground, and the image is then drawn by burnishing the highlights back out of that darkness — the inverse of the etched-line approach used in most contemporary intaglio. Her work centres on a theme she describes as "Fulfilling Loneliness" — the sense of being fulfilled physically and mentally even while alone — and returns repeatedly to imagery of dogs set within quiet, indistinct landscapes as figures for personal solitude. Hatanaka's prints have circulated through both Japanese and international exhibition channels: she was selected for the 65th CWAJ Print Show (2022) at Hillside Forum in Tokyo, and her mezzotints have appeared in international print and mezzotint exhibitions including the Guanlan International Print Biennial in China, the International Mezzotint Festival in Ekaterinburg, Russia — where she was shortlisted for a prize in 2019 — and the Mostra International Mezzotint exhibition in Campinas, Brazil, as well as showings in Belgium, Slovakia and Hong Kong. Her awards include an Outstanding Performance award and a Purchase award from Hiroshima City University (2021) and an Audience Award from the Kamiyama Foundation (2021). With her regional training and a distinctive technical focus on mezzotint, she represents one of the more clearly individuated emerging voices in current Japanese intaglio printmaking.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1994
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 1
Frequently Asked Questions
Aya Hatanaka (born 1994) is an early-career Japanese printmaker who works principally in mezzotint, a technique she has pursued since 2018. She trained at Hiroshima City University, one of the regional Japanese art universities outside the Tokyo and Kyoto axes, earning a BA in fine arts (oil painting) in 2019 and completing her MA there in 2021; she also served as a teaching assistant in the university's printmaking workshop from 2019 to 2021. Mezzotint, her chosen medium, is one of the most demanding intaglio techniques: the entire copper plate is first roughened with a rocker tool to produce a velvety dark ground, and the image is then drawn by burnishing the highlights back out of that darkness — the inverse of the etched-line approach used in most contemporary intaglio. Her work centres on a theme she describes as "Fulfilling Loneliness" — the sense of being fulfilled physically and mentally even while alone — and returns repeatedly to imagery of dogs set within quiet, indistinct landscapes as figures for personal solitude. Hatanaka's prints have circulated through both Japanese and international exhibition channels: she was selected for the 65th CWAJ Print Show (2022) at Hillside Forum in Tokyo, and her mezzotints have appeared in international print and mezzotint exhibitions including the Guanlan International Print Biennial in China, the International Mezzotint Festival in Ekaterinburg, Russia — where she was shortlisted for a prize in 2019 — and the Mostra International Mezzotint exhibition in Campinas, Brazil, as well as showings in Belgium, Slovakia and Hong Kong. Her awards include an Outstanding Performance award and a Purchase award from Hiroshima City University (2021) and an Audience Award from the Kamiyama Foundation (2021). With her regional training and a distinctive technical focus on mezzotint, she represents one of the more clearly individuated emerging voices in current Japanese intaglio printmaking.
Aya Hatanaka was active born in 1994. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Aya Hatanaka'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.