Hideaki Honma b. 1959

Hideaki Honma (b. 1959) is a Japanese bamboo artist whose practice bridges traditional craftsmanship and contemporary sculptural expression. Born in 1959 on Sado Island, Niigata, Honma apprenticed under his father, master bamboo artist Kazuo Honma, beginning in 1987. He has since developed a distinctive body of work characterized by dynamic forms and refined structural balance.

Honma began exhibiting in major juried exhibitions in the early 1990s, including the Japan Contemporary Craft Exhibition (first selected in 1991) and the Nitten Exhibition (first selected in 1992, with continuous selections thereafter). He has received numerous awards, including the Contemporary Craft Award (1994), Niigata Prefectural Exhibition Grand Prize (1996), Honorable Mentions from multiple regional exhibitions, the Main Member Award at the 50th Japan Contemporary Craft Exhibition (2011), the Chairman’s Prize at the 50th Niigata Contemporary Craft Exhibition (2012), the Tokyo Governor’s Award at the 53rd Japan Contemporary Craft Exhibition (2014), and Special Selection prizes at the restructured Nitten Exhibition in both 2014 and 2018.

Internationally, Honma has exhibited in Santa Fe, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. His work was featured at the Japan Society in New York in New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters (2008), and in the “Celebration of the Next Generation” exhibition at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (2007). He has held multiple solo exhibitions at TAI Modern in Santa Fe, marking his 20th, 25th, 30th, and 35th career anniversaries.
Honma’s sculpture Shoyo was displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2013, and in 2017 his work Ryumon (2014) entered The Met’s Abbey Collection. The piece later toured Japan as part of the Abbey Collection exhibition in 2019. His work has also been presented at institutions including MOA Museum of Art, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Tokyo National Museum (Craft 2020, Japan Cultural Expo), LIXIL Gallery, and Portland Japanese Garden.

In addition to his exhibition practice, Honma is actively involved in arts education and institutional leadership. He has served as a juror for numerous national and regional exhibitions, including the Japan Contemporary Craft Exhibition, Nitten Exhibition, National Bamboo Art Exhibition, and Niigata Prefectural Art Exhibition. He is currently a member of Nitten and continues to serve on juried panels, including the 63rd Japan Contemporary Craft Exhibition in 2025.

Honma’s work reflects a lifelong dedication to bamboo as both material and medium, combining inherited tradition with contemporary vision, and positioning him as one of Japan’s leading figures in modern bamboo sculpture.