Himeka Murai
Himeka Murai (b.1996, Tokyo, Japan) is a self-taught visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Murai was awarded the "Young Artist Fellowship" from ChaNorth International Writers & Artists-in- Residence Program in 2024, and was selected for the NYFA "Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program: Visual and Multidisciplinary Arts” in 2023. She has exhibited at Studio 9D (New York, NY) , New York Live Arts (New York, NY), Lichtundfire Gallery (New York, NY), Random Access Gallery (Syracuse, NY), Shibuya HIKARIE (Tokyo, Japan), Muracekai (Tokyo, Japan), and at various venues in Brooklyn, NY such as Kunstram LLC. and Incubator Studio Gallery. Murai earned an AAS in Communication Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology (2021) and a BLA in Art History and Cultural Heritage (2019) from the International Christian University in Tokyo. In 2025 she participated in the summer residency program at Lichtundfire Gallery (New York, NY), supported by TUSSLE Magazine/Projects, as one of two resident artists.
Himeka Murai creates sculptures, paintings, and installations using found objects, everyday materials, and natural pigments she makes herself. Her work reflects on memory, home, and identity, shaped by her upbringing in Tokyo and life in the U.S.
She is drawn to materials that carry traces of time, objects that are worn, fragile, or forgotten. Through collecting, layering, and transforming these materials, she explores how memories surface not as clear stories but as fragments tied to place and touch. Her work moves between abstraction and representation, reflecting on the impermanence of things and the quiet histories embedded in materials and images.