Aya Hatanaka

Aya Hatanaka (born 1994, Hiroshima Prefecture) is an early-career Japanese printmaker working principally in mezzotint, with a sustained practice based in Hiroshima Prefecture. Her selection in the 68th CWAJ Print Show in 2025 with 'My Home' (わたしのおうち), a 39 × 58 cm mezzotint on gampi paper, places her within the emerging cohort of Japanese intaglio printmakers whose work is now circulating through the principal Tokyo-area juried exhibition channels.

Hatanaka received her training at Hiroshima City University, the principal art university in Hiroshima Prefecture and one of the regional Japanese art universities outside the Tokyo and Kyoto axes. The Hiroshima City University printmaking program has produced a recognizable cohort of contemporary Japanese print artists, and Hatanaka's regional training and continued Hiroshima-based practice represents a less common career pathway than the Tokyo-Tama or Tokyo-Geidai routes that dominate CWAJ representation.

Hatanaka's principal teacher was Tsuriya Koki, a senior figure on the Hiroshima City University printmaking faculty. Direct teaching-line affiliation with Tsuriya situates Hatanaka within a documented Hiroshima-region pedagogical tradition.

Hatanaka's medium of choice — mezzotint on gampi paper — is a technically sophisticated combination. Mezzotint is one of the most demanding intaglio techniques: the entire copper plate is roughened with a rocker tool to produce a velvety dark ground, and the image is created by burnishing back the highlights — the inverse of the etched-line approach used in most contemporary intaglio. Gampi paper is a traditional Japanese washi paper made from the bark of the Wikstroemia gampi shrub, prized for its smooth surface, translucency, and exceptional strength. The combination of mezzotint plate-work with gampi paper creates a distinctively Japanese register for the European intaglio technique — soft tonal modeling on a paper substrate that contributes its own subtle texture and warmth to the print.

The title 'My Home' (わたしのおうち, watashi no ouchi) signals a domestic-space subject, characteristic of the personal-narrative direction that has been a recurrent register in Japanese contemporary print across the past two decades. The 39 × 58 cm sheet size is a moderate horizontal mezzotint plate. The CWAJ catalog assigned 'My Home' Print No. 027 in the 68th edition.

Further biographical detail beyond the CWAJ Print Show entry — Hatanaka's broader exhibition history, gallery representation, earlier work, and continuing series direction — is not currently surfaced through the public-facing English-language channels. Hiroshima-area exhibition records, the Hiroshima City University alumni network, and Japanese-language sources covering early-career intaglio printmakers would be the principal next-step research targets for extending this bio. As an artist born in 1994 with regional training and a distinctive technical channel (mezzotint on gampi), Hatanaka represents one of the more clearly individuated emerging voices in current Japanese print.