HAKUNOGAWA

Hakunogawa (b.1992, Tokyo) has had a fondness for drawing and doodling since she was a small child. It was at around age twenty-one that she began a serious undertaking with her self-expression, using A6 size paper and ballpoint pens. She used to have a job, and would spend her breaks working on her art, but now she spends her days at daycare due to her mental health, where she can be seen creating all day. That’s not all though, whenever she has a free moment in a café, on the train or bus, she will be sketching impressions of what she saw or what comes into her mind. She has a preference for places with lots of people, and she will often use cups and drinks she sees as a motif, giving these things anthropomorphic qualities and projecting her thoughts and feelings on to them. Sometimes, she dislikes what she has created. However, she will never throw it away. No matter what emotion is attached to a particular piece, she says they are all her valuable creations.

Hakunogawa works mainly in black and white as she has such little money, and colour only features if she is able to get money. In 2019 in Japan, a film crew has documented the room where she lives as it is covered in all her drawings across the walls. She had her work exhibited at the Halle Saint Pierre, Paris, in 2018 in ‘Art Brut Japonias II.’

2023 Why We Linger, Darbyshire, London
2022 To all the Kings who have no Crowns, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate
2020 Monochromatic Minds: Lines of Revelation, Candid Arts Trust, London
2019 Outsider Art Fair, Atelier Richelieu, Paris
2018 Art Brut Japonais II, Halle Saint Pierre, Paris