About

Hanae Watanabe / Artist, Illustrator
Based in Japan

As a child living in Istanbul, Turkey, I couldn’t speak the language—drawing was my only way to communicate.
I sketched the birds we kept, gave portraits to others, and discovered something that stays with me to this day:
art has the power to connect hearts. That feeling became the foundation of everything I create.

Since 2011, I have worked as a chalk artist, creating café menu boards and providing visual direction for hotels and events.
Today, I mainly work digitally, offering a wide range of illustrations for advertisements, picture books, character designs, and book covers.

Blended colors with a soft bleed, untold stories within stillness, and emotions that have no name—
I strive to create artworks that capture such lingering atmospheres.
Through the fusion of illustration with poetry, scent, and three-dimensional objects, my goal is to offer small moments of deep breath within everyday life.