Japanese artist Mari Katayama has built an international reputation with her distinctive photographic works that integrate hand-stitched textiles, sculptures, and mirrors to create immersive, surreal environments in which she appears as both subject and element. Known for blending elements of self-portraiture with broader reflections on identity, her recent "tree of life" series (2024-25) exemplifies this approach by surrounding her figure with elaborately crafted props, including fabric forms named "koilia," tree branches, and a faux crocodile head. The use of multiple mirrors fractures and multiplies her image, producing complex visual layers that extend beyond the individual body to explore relationships between self, objects, and environment.
Katayama, 39, has exhibited at prominent venues including London’s Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Photography Centre, Paris’s Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve, and Tokyo’s Yutaka Kikutake Gallery. She was recently awarded the inaugural Mori Art Award, which carries a prize of ¥10 million (approximately $62,800), one of the largest cash awards in the Japanese contemporary art scene. Her winning work will be on display at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo from October 31, 2026, through March 28, 2027, featuring photographs and sewn sculptures from the “tree of life” series that have not previously been publicly exhibited. Katayama intends for the exhibition to function as an installation rather than a conventional display.
Born in Saitama Prefecture and currently based in Gunma Prefecture, Katayama has created hand-sewn objects since childhood. She holds a master’s degree in intermedia art from Tokyo University of the Arts. Her career encompasses photography, textiles, fashion, and music; she has also performed as a jazz singer. In 2020, she received the Kimura Ihei Award, a major photography prize in Japan. Among her earlier works are a 2016 trilogy of photography and sewn-object series exploring themes of body, society, and personal history, as well as the High Heel Project, which designs prosthetics shaped like high-heeled shoes to challenge conventional notions of fashion and disability.
In discussing her latest series, Katayama emphasized her evolving focus on the structural systems underpinning personal identity and relationships. She described repetition and variation in her work as expressions of hope, linking these themes to her experiences with gender and disability. Katayama noted a resurgence in how disability and feminist identities are perceived and labeled within art and society, expressing concern that such categorizations can obscure artistic intent by reducing work to aspects of identity alone.
Katayama has spoken publicly about encountering prejudice in the art world, including instances where curators referenced her medical disability alongside her name without it relating to the content of her work. She has challenged this practice, arguing that her art is not created to represent disability specifically but rather explores broader human experience.
Her creative influences span a range of visual artists and musicians, from German photographer Juergen Teller and Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani to Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch, as well as musicians like Cole Porter and Sonic Youth. Katayama draws inspiration from experimental and repetitive structures found in music, which resonate with her collage-like artistic processes.
Photography remains central to her art practice as she continues to integrate multiple media and ideas. Participating in the ongoing Tokyo exhibition "I’m So Happy You Are Here," which celebrates postwar Japanese women photographers, has underscored her place in a lineage of female artists. She acknowledges a sense of responsibility as one of the emerging talents in this tradition, noting the historical connection through Ryu Shima, the first Japanese woman photographer, who also originated from Gunma Prefecture.