Ceysson & Bénétière

b. Iberaki, Japan

Lives and works in New York and Tokyo

Education

2004 Graduated from BA Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London

2010 Graduated from MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London

2019 Visiting Scholar at New York University

2022 PhD Candidate in interdisciplinary art at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Hanae Utamura is a Japanese interdisciplinary artist and an educator based in New York and Tokyo.

She received her Master of Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, and her Bachelor Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Utamura has received support through numerous international residencies and fellowships including Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, Germany), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), PACT Zollverein (Essen, Germany), Art Omi (Hudson, U.S.), Santa Fe Art Institute Residency, Aomori Contemporary Art Center (Japan), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Changdong Art Studio (Seoul, S.Korea), Seoul Art Space_GEUMCHEON (Seoul, S.Korea), Florence Trust (London, U.K.) and more.

She has been awarded More Art Engaging Artist Fellowship, NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, Shiseido Art Egg Award, Grant program by the Japanese Ministry of Culture, the Pola Art Foundation, UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary Award, and Axis/Florence Trust Award. And has been exhibited extensively in Asia, Europe and U.S. She was a visiting scholar at New York University in 2019, supported by Japanese Ministry of Culture, Japanese government as a part of Japan - United States Exchange Friendship Program in the Art.

Hanae Utamura’s research centers around the questions on modernity, ecology and technology.

Utamura’s media include video, performance, installation, and sculpture. She connects human beings and earth, using the physical human body as a conduit. She explores negotiations and conflicts between the human and the non-human, and how all the varieties of the wills of life manifest such as in the field of science. By decentralizing the human perspective, Utamura diversifies historical narratives, and enters the imagination of nature.

Utamura’s Presence of Absence series of paintings is born out of the contemplation of a ritual site where placenta, an organ that grows fetus inside the womb before birth, and human remains were buried beneath a European Larch Tree in Prospect Park, Troy, NY.

The grass is currently growing out of the soil on top, which potentially contains human DNA. The series of paintings reflects light and moves through different angles. The shape of the painting resembles like different leaves, the placenta, the morphing limbs, or different souls. The work traverses from the site of grief, mourning and trauma, into the place of regeneration, healing and self-transformation.

Listening into the continuation of life after death, organicism of the decay and decomposition, and ongoing micro activity in the soil, these works are the exploration of the embodiment of the cyclical nature, memory, and transcendence.

Solo & Two-Person Exhibitions

2023 

Broken Earths / Tierras Rotas, op.cit./foundation, Mexico City, Mexico

2022 

STRATA, waitingroom gallery, Tokyo, Japan (Two-person show with Naho Kawabe)

Transmutation, Frontispace, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York

2021 

'Resonances of DiStances/共鳴する距離感 ', basedonart gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany (Two person show with Shigeko Kubota, Screening with Shelly Silver)

2018 

Weather Constellation, Rosenberg Gallery, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

Holiday at War, Shiseido Art Egg Award Exhibition, Shiseido Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Ontology of Performance: Falls of Niagara, SOMA Gallery, Berlin, Germany

2016 

Holiday at War, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany

2015 

Holiday at War, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany

2014 

Across the Grid, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany

2012 

Construct: Fountain, Patio Project, WW Gallery, London, United Kingdom

2011 

Inverted Horizons, Schwartz Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Group Exhibitions, Screenings, and Performances

2024

Threads, Albany Center Gallery, Albany, NY (until June 1, 2024)

Seeding Care, ArtPort Kingston, Kingston, NY

Graduate Exhibition, Create Community Studios, Troy, NY

Screening & Performance, Three Phase Center, Stone Ridge, NY

Dear Being, curated by Yola Monakhov Stockton, Last Projects, Los Angeles

2023

West Hall Open Studios, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

Screening Dialogue in Asia, Knots for the Arts, Tokyo, Japan (Screening)

IJsselbiënnale, Deventer, The Netherlands

Fringe Arts Bath, Bath, United Kingdom

b priori, Collar Works, Troy, NY

2022

West Hall Open Studios, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

'Water Music', Excavating Niagara by Null point, Artpark / Niagara River, Lewiston, New York

'The Summer Group Show', The Parsonage Gallery, Maine, United States

'SUMMER Nights', Canada gallery, New York, NY

'Open Studio vol.1', ANB Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

'Futures, Narratives, and Networks', More Art, Queens Museum, New York, NY

2021

'Not Words, Not Image / 言葉でもなく、イメージでもなく、', Krautraum, Tokyo, Japan

Phantasmapolis, Asian Art Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan

'Contretemps' Wetlab, New York Virtual Volcano Observatory, Governor’s Island, New York, NY

'Faculty Exhibition' Hartnett Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY

'Living Matter', Russian National Museum Association of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

‘Sommerfest’, Dreams of Solidarity to Fill the Vacuum, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany

‘Pars Pro Toto‘, Peer to Space, Germany

2020

'Feminists in Collective Practice' curated by Back and Forth Collective, TOKAS, Tokyo (Screening)

'ecofeminism(s)' curated by Monika Fabijanska, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York

'Solo Show', UN/CUBE Gallery

'Here, Together!' The Immigrant Artist Biennial (TIAB), Brooklyn Museum, New York, U.S. (Performance)

2019

'Image_between History and Human being’, The Korean Society of Art and Media International Exhibition 2019, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea

'From Here to Eternity-The research of temporality and eternity of contemporary art No.5', B-galleria, Turku, Finland

'Lively in Between', Aomori Contemporary Art Center, Aomori, Japan

'Modest Expressionism #1 Water, Wood, Cloth', J & M Studios #210, New York

'Body in Exile', Geary Contemporary, New York (Screening)

'Overflow' at Gallatin Gallery, New York University, As a part of Museum of Future Fossils

'Multiversant', Chashama, New York, U.S.

'The Blue', Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, U.S. (Performance, Solo Installation)

'The Peak / The Blue', Chez Bushwick /Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation, New York, U.S. (Performance)

2018

'Sweep~Landskip', Kinokino, Stavanger, Norway

2017

'Auguries', Seoul Art Space_GEUMCHEON, Seoul, S. Korea

'From Here to Eternity', OMO artspace, Berlin

'Whenever the Heart Skips a Beat', Mehring Platz, Berlin

'End of Summer open studio', Yale Union contemporary art center, Portland, U.S.

'SWEEP', Immaterial Arts, Forum Factory, Berlin (Performance)

'On Drawing', Performing Arts Festival Berlin, Ausland, Berlin (Performance)

2016

'Almost Void', Kunstraum34, Stuttgart, Germany（Concert in collaboration with Ensemble cross.art)

'Letter from Future Past', Faith & Terror Performance Art Festival, Meinblau, Berlin (Performance)

'L’intru (Invaders)' Lage Egal, Berlin

2015

'AS_pedia Project Vol. 1' Gallery Purple, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

'Kameradschaft Zollverein' Atelier Exceptionnel, PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany

Impact 15, PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany (Performance)

Sluice Art Fair 2015, London

'Le Lait Du Miroir', Le 6B, Paris

‘Relational Geographies’, UAL Showroom, London

‘Borderlands’, Month of Performance Art Berlin, MeinBlau, Berlin, Germany

‘From Here to Eternity’, Gallery Purple, Seoul, South Korea

2014

‘Super Romantics’, Daegu Art Factory, Daegu, South Korea

‘Mapping the Space’, Project Space Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany

‘Act – Re Act’, Wimbledon Space, London (Performance)

'From Here to Eternity', Gallery FACTORY, Seoul, South Korea

2013

'Tightrope', Sumarria Lunn Gallery, London

'ASYAAF', Cultural Station 284, Seoul, South Korea

Pyeong Chang Biennale, Pyeong Chang, South Korea

'TOPFLOOR/TOPOS', Dordtyart, Dordrecht, The Netherlands

'Seoul Seoul Seoul', National Art Studio Changdong, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, Seoul

'Here I am', Hole and Corner Media Art Gallery, Gwangju, Korea