ABOUT
Emily Hana (b. 1990, Tokyo) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores introspection, identity, and the complexities of connection—connection with others, connection with the self, and the consequences of its absence. Raised in Australia, she moved to London in 2016, working as a traditional printmaker before turning to painting during the pandemic.
Hana’s sculptural canvases challenge perception, shifting and distorting as the viewer moves around them. Her recent series, Simulacra, examines the blurred boundaries between reality and representation, engaging with themes of multiplicity and constructed identity. Meanwhile, The Hugging Machine explores loneliness, intimacy, and the human need for touch, drawing from personal history and research into 'skin hunger.' Both bodies of work reflect her ongoing fascination with how identity is shaped, fractured, and reassembled through relationships—with others, with the self, and with the spaces in between.
Hana’s process is deeply tactile, merging painting with sculptural construction. She works with unconventional, often discarded materials, assembling and layering them to create compositions that resist a single viewpoint. Her fragmented surfaces and shifting perspectives encourage the viewer to engage physically, mirroring the way identity is never fixed but constantly reconstructed. By embracing distortion, deconstruction, and reassembly, her work blurs the boundary between the familiar and the unknown, offering a meditation on perception, selfhood, and the nature of human connection.
Hana is currently represented by Red Eight Gallery and Cicek Gallery and more available works can be found through their websites
Timeline
2025 April -Royal British arts Rising stars exhibition- Royal overseas League Mayfair
2025 March - Red eight gallery, Bank - solo
2024 September- finalist Dubel Prize
2024 April- Apocalyptic changes of state- Brushes With Greatness- Shoreditch
2024 April- June - RBA Rising Stars group show, Royal Over Seas League, Mayfair
2024- Shortlisted Royal British Arts Rome scholarship
2023 April- June - RBA Rising Stars group show, Royal Over Seas League, Mayfair
2023 March - Affordable Art Fair , Art Friend
2023- Shortlisted Royal British Arts Rome scholarship
2022 June - British Painting 3 group show, Bermondsey project space, London
2022 June- Body Unbound group show, Stour Galleries, London
2021 November - Komorebi solo show, Open House Hackney, London
2021- Resident at Hackney Wick Underground
2019 -Exhaustion and exuberance, Deptford does Art
2017-Current- Senior Printmaker for Harland Miller at Thumbprint Editions
2018 April- Installation at Vittoria Wharf, London
2016 June-August - Artist Residency at OT301 Amsterdam
2016 August 18 - 4Bid Gallery Solo Show, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2016 August - Installation at De School, alongside Children of the Light - Diapositive. Amsterdam
2016 January 20- Practice What You Teach group show- M2 Gallery Surry Hills
2016 January 19- Visions Beyond group show - Kudos Gallery Paddington
2015 September- Solo exhibition 'SPLIT' Carlton Project space NG gallery, Chippendale
2015 May-July- Group exhibition at Black Toast, Annandale
2015 January- Exhibition Laneways project, Baru Art, Little Hunter St Sydney CBD
2014 December- Exhibition Folklore, Paddington
2014 June- Exhibition at Chasm Gallery, Chippendale
2013- Art Director - Tank (short film)
2009- Work highlighted and exhibited ArtExpress at ‘The Armoury'
2007- Book Binding Charles Sturt University