Megumi Ohata MRSS

Ohata earned a distinction in MA Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art, London in 2023, following a First Class Honours Degree in BA Illustration at Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts London in 2019. Their work has been presented at prestigious venues including Tate Modern, Cromwell Place, and HSBC HQ. They were runner-up in The Batsford Prize fashion category in 2019 and received the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Arts & Culture Grant in 2022. In 2023, they delivered an artist talk, Reimagining the Human Body, at Tate Modern. Their artworks were collected by the Adamovskiy Foundation in 2024, marking a significant recognition of their unique artistic vision.

Ohata's work deeply explores identity politics, Posthuman philosophy, and the intersectionality of personal traumas such as child abuse, gender struggles, and discrimination due to their Asian heritage. Using SFX techniques, Ohata creates sculptural installations that merge wearable art and hyper-realistic life-sized sculptures, drawing inspiration from the rich folklore of Japanese Yokai. By merging human and animal-like forms, Ohata seeks to challenge conventional boundaries between 'self' and 'other', aiming to create a space for contemplation and dialogue on identity, existence, the complexities of cultural displacement, and the fluidity between human and non-human realms. Ohata views their art as an extension of their body—a tool to blur boundaries beyond their skin and explore non-human forms within.

They foster an environment conducive to intimate interactions, encouraging profound connections, empathy, and understanding, while also provoking introspection about our shared existence. In their journey to reconcile traumatic experiences, Ohata questions the role of artists in breaking free from society's negative cycles and poses the question: What does a body need to be relatable?