About
Lena Yokoyama is a Japanese/Austrian illustrator and printmaker based in London. She is represented by Grand Matter.
Lena’s work highlights diversity in a playful and colourful way, inspired by her own experience of growing up in a multicultural environment. Her artworks, created through a mix of painting, printmaking, and digital techniques, feature a variety of characters and curious personalities that emerge from a process of combining incidental shapes with considered lines, colour and texture.
Recent Clients
The New York Times, Hermès, Google, Airbnb, Ferment Magazine, It’s Nice That, Red Bull, The TATE, The Guardian, Camden Hells Brewery, Mondo Brewery, Paperboy London, Community Bridges, South London Gallery, the Austrian Embassy, The Bower Publication House, MAP London, Soho House, So Young Magazine, Selfridges, The Quentin Blake Center for Illustration, Tonkotsu, The English National Opera, Blue Studio Japan, The Harvard Business Review
Simultaneous Practices
Lena is a VP (Visiting Practitioner) at Camberwell College of Arts, London
Lena is part of an illustration collective called ISSHOO Collective. Together, they run mural workshops, plan exhibitions and paint murals.
Selected Press
Live talks and Podcasts
Illustrators Acquainted, January 2024
VP talk at Camberwell College of Arts on ‘Editorial Illustration’ 2023
FH Würzburg, Germany 2021
Awards
World Illustration Awards, Shortlist, 2024
World Illustration Awards, Longlist, 2021
UAL Graduate Incubation Programme selection, 2020
Macmillan Price for Illustration, Highly Commended, 2019
TATE Christmas Cards Competition, Winner, 2019
Xhibit Selected Exhibitioner, 2017
Red Bull Art Scholarship, 2016
Residencies
El Sur Art Residency, Mexico City, February 2024
Drawing Residency, Marseille, France, July - September 2023
MORNING People Fund Residency, Tokyo, September 2022
Google Artist in Residence, March-May 2022
ArteSumapaz Art Residency, Colombia, July - September 2021
OUTPOST Printmaking Residency, London, July 2020
Exhibitions
Espacios Intermedios, Mexico City, March 2024
Postcards from Marseille to Elsewhere, Peckham Pelican, London, September 2023
Onomatopoeia, Tokyo Bike, London, April-May 2023
Mujer Con Fruta, Peckham Pelican, London, May 2022
Mujer Con Fruta, Colombia, 2021
University of the Arts Degree Show, Virtual, 2020
Interim Show, London, 2020
A Study in Cyan, Finsbury Park, London, 2019
Windows, GX Gallery, London, 2018
A mythic understanding, Camberwell Space Gallery, London, 2018
Print Show at Lumberjack, London, 2018
Spitalfields Market Pitch, Shoreditch, London, 2018
CCW Foundation Graduate Show, London, 2017
Xhibit, London, 2017
Red Bull Fashion Show, Hangar7, Austria, 2015
Contact:
For new commissions, please get in touch with my agents George and Chloë at: hello@grandmatter.com