Biography
Hisaharu Motoda (元田久治, born 1973, Kumamoto Prefecture) is a Japanese lithographer best known for the precise, large-format ruined-cityscape prints he has been producing since the early 2000s. He began studying lithography at Kyushu Sangyo University's Faculty of Fine Arts and went on to complete a graduate degree in printmaking at Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geidai), supplemented by residencies in Australia and the United States.
Motoda's signature subject matter — Tokyo, Beijing, Sydney, Singapore, and other major cities depicted as if abandoned and falling slowly back into nature — emerged in 2004 with the Revelation series. The early Revelation lithographs include Cinderella Castle (Tokyo Disneyland) (2004), Kabukichō I and II (the Shinjuku entertainment district, 2004), and The Kaminarimon Gate (Asakusa, 2005). The technical signature is a meticulous lithographic line drawing of the architectural subject combined with overgrown vegetation, broken glass, and slowly returning forest, executed in the disciplined black-and-white tonal range of fine-art stone lithography.
The subsequent Indication series (2009 onward) extended the project across the global cityscape — Indication: Shibuya Center Town, Indication: Imperial Palace / Nijubashi, Indication: Statue of Liberty / Odaiba (2013), and Indication: Opera House Sydney (2010) — and the Foresight series (2017) built on the same visual vocabulary at chamber scale, with works including Foresight: World Trade Center I and II (USA), Foresight: The Eiffel Tower, Foresight: Chrysler Building (US), Foresight: Empire State Building (US), Foresight: Burj Khalifa (UAE) I and II, Foresight: Marina Bay Sands (Singapore), and Foresight: Canton Tower (China). The 2017 Foresight prints are typically issued at editioned print scales of 305 × 190 mm to 910 × 650 mm, with sale prices in 2022 ranging from approximately ¥150,000 to ¥240,000.
Most recently the CARS series (2020–22) has reframed the same post-apocalyptic vocabulary onto the abandoned automobile. CARS Mercedes Benz GL2, CARS PAJERO, CARS Manhole, and the monumental CARS WhiteLine 1g (2,020 × 4,720 × 30 mm panel-linen mixed media) demonstrate his continuing extension of the lithographic-print register into mixed-media collage on panel and linen.
Motoda is represented in Japan by Art Front Gallery (Tokyo) and is held in major Japanese institutional collections including the Shoto Museum of Art (Tokyo), the Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, and the Adachi Ukiyo-e Memorial Foundation collection. International exhibitions include the Honolulu Museum of Art's lecture programme and major group exhibitions in Hawaii, France, Italy, China, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. His work has been documented by Art Front Gallery, the Daniel Charny / Japigozzi Collection, and Kala Art Institute (Berkeley).
Within contemporary Japanese printmaking he is one of the most distinctive lithographers of his generation — a printmaker whose post-apocalyptic urban imagery occupies a recognisable place in the post-2000s Japanese cultural imagination of weathering, decay, and the relationship between artificial structure and returning nature. His prints have entered international circulation through the Honolulu Museum, Kala Art Institute Berkeley, and Asian-art-survey exhibitions of contemporary Japanese printmaking.
Key Facts
- Active Period
- 1973
- Nationality
- 🇯🇵Japan
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 2
Frequently Asked Questions
Hisaharu Motoda (元田久治, born 1973, Kumamoto Prefecture) is a Japanese lithographer best known for the precise, large-format ruined-cityscape prints he has been producing since the early 2000s. He began studying lithography at Kyushu Sangyo University's Faculty of Fine Arts and went on to complete a graduate degree in printmaking at Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geidai), supplemented by residencies in Australia and the United States.
Hisaharu Motoda was active born in 1973. They were associated with the Contemporary Mokuhanga movement.
Hisaharu Motoda'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.
