Bio

Hanna Kojima Boyd is a Japanese and American artist who grew up in Tokyo, Japan, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Fairbanks, Alaska. 

Her practice is primarily focused on oil painting, and is supported by her explorations in creative writing, photography, and video work. Her works are deeply layered and ambiguous, both visually and in context, exploring themes of nostalgia, impermanence, and the eternal cerebral search for belonging.

She is currently based in London, and her work can be purchased online at https://newbloodart.com/artist/hanna-kojima-boyd

Statement

My oil paintings begin with investigation through writing and photography. Through photography, I capture the fleeting: a shadow, a reflection, a daydream. Through writing, I record my thoughts that ache to be remembered. A catalog of my state of mind as I fluctuate from depressive quicksand to transcendental happiness. 

Taking these source materials, I slowly shape my paintings through many layers like an oyster forming a pearl; a healing process, each layer internalizing, digesting the irritant, coating it in soothing enchantments. The layers are translucent and veil-like, creating an atmosphere of oneiric ambiguity.

In my most recent series of paintings, I began writing on my canvases, layering handwriting and imagery from my photographs on top of each other. The writing creates a murmuring cacophony that beckons you closer, as if the painting has a secret to tell you. Combined with the subject matter of the paintings, which captures the impermanent, the paintings elicit a shifting atmosphere of nostalgia for a time that does not exist in real life.