“Hi. My name is Hanako. I am a craft based multimedia artist living in Seattle, on the ancestral land of the Coast Salish tribes and Dwamish people. I descend from my mother Sumiko, and her mother, Hatsuko. I am one in a long line of Japanese women who dared to defy tradition and forge their own path. I place no allegiance to any given medium or artform, however, I make art because I believe it is through my hands that the deepest secrets, oldest stories, and most potent magic of my ancestors are preserved. My hands hold stories my voice has yet to discover, and with them I’ll make our power be known.”

Hanako O’Leary was born and raised by her Japanese mother and American father. She grew up roaming the suburbs of Chicago. Every year, for 2 months during the summer holiday, her mother would take her and her siblings back to their ancestral home in Hiroshima, Japan. These summers were spent learning how to cook, clean, and honor her ancestors from her four aunts, Nagako, Nobuko, Atsuko, and Masako. Hanako attended this annual pilgrimage until the year she turned 18 and these summer months would deeply influence her spiritual beliefs, artistic voice, and feminine ideals.

Spending most of her life on American soil, but always under a Japanese matriarchy, Hanako learned to bridge these identities through art, employing traditional Japanese imagery to narrate her current American story.

Hanako has received an extensive arts education within institutional walls and beyond. She exists through her hands. Currently, she is building her ceramic series, Izanami, at Pottery North West in Seattle, WA. where she is a long term resident artist.