Hiroko Ohno
Hiroko Ohno is a Brooklyn-based artist originally from Tokyo whose work explores the relationship between the universe, gravity, and human perception. Her paintings are philosophical inquiries into why the world exists as it does—connecting cosmic phenomena such as black holes, space, and time with the sensory experience of being human.
Working with traditional Japanese pigments made from minerals—crystals that hold the compressed time of the Earth—and from shells and corals that reflect the living continuity of the Earth’s ecosystems, Ohno paints galaxies and celestial bodies as if returning these substances to their cosmic origin, as though painting with celestial bodies themselves. The surface of her paintings often appears as deep navy blue, but beneath lie dozens of layers of crimson, imagined as the incandescent beginning of space itself. These pigments carry deep hidden meanings, and through this layer of color she implies the existence of a network connecting the visible and invisible, the past and present.
Her process often involves observing and painting the night sky directly in remote locations such as the Atacama Desert, Namibia, and the Sahara, transforming field research into large-scale canvases. This act of painting in nature is both contemplative and a quiet resistance to the acceleration of modern technological life.
Her work is conceptually informed by philosopher Graham Harman and ancient Japanese cosmology, both of which hold that all elements of existence—humans, animals, plants, rocks, and fire—are of equal value. In the age of the Anthropocene, her paintings invite viewers to contemplate physical and spiritual existence on a cosmic scale, to reconsider the value of things, and to recognize our own smallness as dust in the universe.
Born in Tokyo, Ohno holds a BFA and MFA from Musashino Art University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Sanagi Fine Arts (Tokyo); Radio House Gallery (NY); Desbrosses Gallery (NY); Homma Museum (Yamagata); and Takashimaya Gallery (Tokyo).
Group shows: Amos Eno Gallery; Lichtundfire; 440 Gallery; UBS Art Gallery; A.I.R. Gallery; El Taller Latino Americano (NY); Lite-Haus Galerie (Berlin); Silvermine Art Gallery (CT); Asia Week San Francisco Bay Area (CA); NYFA exhibitions (IAP Artists, NYFA 50th Anniversary, Governors Island Art Fair).
Collections: University of Tokyo; Keio University; Hiratsuka Museum of Art; Homma Museum; CUNY QCC Art Gallery; Lyman Allyn Museum.
Grants / Residencies: Artist Summer Institute (LMCC / Creative Capital); Vermont Studio Center; NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists.
Publications: Collected Works of Hiroko Ohno (Kyuryudo, 1995); Midori Yamamura, Women Across Asian Art (U. Florida Press, 2023); Stephen Gambello, “Face of the Deep,” Arcade Project, 2023.
Exhibitions
Solo show scheduled in October 2026.