Bio

Hiroyo Kaneko is a photographer from Aomori, Japan, now based in Oakland, California. Her passion for photography began at 23 when she was given an old Pentax camera by her father. Kaneko’s work apparently explores the relationships between people and their environments, a theme influenced by her own experiences of frequent relocations since childhood and her life as an immigrant in the United States.

She holds an MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BA in French Literature from Meiji Gakuin University. Over the years, Kaneko’s talent and perspective have earned her numerous honors, including the Santa Fe Prize for Photography in 2009 and recognition as a finalist in the Philadelphia Museum of Art Photography Portfolio Competition in 2012. In 2022, her series Appearance won the 32nd Society of Photography, Japan Award. Her work has been exhibited widely in both the U.S. and Japan at several venues such as SFMOMA, the MIMOCA Museum in Kagawa, and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo.