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The 49th artist room was created by artist Honoka Hayashi. The production is completed on September, 2025.
Room #3422 | Completion Date: 2025.09
I created this space with the theme “Japan: A Wonderland”, hoping that your stay will become a small journey into Japanese culture and art. I blend playfulness with Asian aesthetic sensibility.
In Japan, a mask (Omen) can be a sacred object – appearing in Noh theater as an incarnation of a god that bridges our world with the other – yet in festivals it’s cherished as an item of laughter, humor, and good fortune.
In this room, designed so that adults and children alike can enjoy it in their own way, please relax and experience the wondrous world of Japan where sacredness and playfulness, tradition and pop culture coexist.
Born in Nara Prefecture.
Graduated from Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts.
Recipient of the Special Jury Prize (Masahiro Takahashi Prize and Koji Yoshida Prize) at Independent Tokyo 2022. Since then, she has exhibited widely both in Japan and abroad, including K Auction and Paradise City Hotel in Korea, and ART TAIPEI in Taiwan. Her creative activities extend beyond the boundaries of art and design, including work on the umbrella and rain goods brand KASANOWA and artwork for KUNtea.
The motif of masks, which she repeatedly depicts, has been cherished worldwide as objects imbued with the power of gods, spirits, and animals. In Japan, masks appear as incarnations of gods in traditional theater, while in festivals they are passed down as items of laughter, humor, and good fortune.
At the same time, masks serve as devices that conceal facial features, expressions, race, and gender, acting as “amulets” to protect from the outside world and as “symbols of oppression.” Embracing this duality, she captures the faint remnants of salvation and hope in modern society, portraying herself as an “outlier”.