Chicago-based artist Mika Horibuchi utilizes trompe-l’oeil painting techniques to develop a critical interrogation of artistic media, authorship, and value. Inhabiting the edge between object and representation, Horibuchi’s work emerges from what she calls a “spiral of mimesis” which extends from paintings to installations, interiors, and environments. 

CURRICULUM VITAE
Born 1991, San Francisco, CA.
Lives and works in Chicago, IL.

EDUCATION
2013
BFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2025
ROSTER, 56 Henry, New York, NY

2024
Original Studies, PATRON and 56 HENRY, Miami Beach, FL

2023
Showcase, PATRON, Chicago, IL
First Place Award Selection Premiere, 56 Henry, New York, NY

2022
Watercolors, Bortolami, New York, NY

2020
A Tale of Today: Nate Young and Mika Horibuchi, The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Chicago IL

2018
Chicago Works: Mika Horibuchi, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Una vida domestica, Salon ACME, Mexico City, Mexico

2017
Paintings of Watercolors, PATRON, Chicago IL

2016
Draw the Curtain, PATRON, Chicago, IL
No Secret, LVL3, Chicago, IL

2015
Mika Horibuchi and Dan Rizzo-Orr: View with a Room, Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL

2013
Mika Horibuchi, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL
Four-Years: Mika Horibuchi, Sharp, Chicago, IL
Bad Graphics, Alcatraz, Chicago, IL
Surface Fiction, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL
Shared Studios: Stephanie Cristello & Mika Horibuchi, SUGs Projects, Chicago, IL

2012
Mika Horibuchi: Slightly Better Than Reality, Gagosian’t Gallery, Chicago, IL

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
a person chosen, named, or honored…, PATRON, Chicago, IL

2024
Intimate Landscapes, The Orange Advisory, Minneapolis, MN

2023
Past Time, Efraín Lopez, New York, NY

2019
The Empathy Lab,Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Fransisco, CA
The Map is Not the Territory, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL
In the Hot Seat, KMAC Museum, Louisville, KY

2018
Good News, Ralph Arnold Gallery, Loyola University, Chicago IL
On Anxiety, Cleve Carney Art Gallery, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL
8: James Bouché, Andy Delany, Mika Horibuchi, Kara Joslyn, Francesco Lo Castro, LVL3, Chicago, IL
Una Vida Domestica, Mexico City, Mexico
This is a Pipe: Realism and the Found Object in Contemporary Art, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, IL

2017
Tangled Bliss and Beautiful Soup: Amie Cunat, Mika Horibuchi, and Florencia Escudero, Selena Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Council, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL

2016
The Annual, Chicago Artist Coalition, Chicago, IL
Things, Soccer Club Club, Chicago IL
Sub Rosa, Loudhailer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Miranda, Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2015
Theory of Forms, PATRON, Chicago, IL
Complementary Width, The Franklin, Chicago, IL
Stardust Memories, Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL
Neon Dreams: Threewalls Gala, Threewalls, Chicago, IL
AFMI Gala, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
7 over 7, Silent Funny, Chicago, IL

2014
NANJING INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL, Nanjing, China
‘Yes, you’re in heaven’, Pop-Up Gallery, Chicago, IL
Visual Arts Exhibition 2014, Luminarts Cultural Foundation at the Union League Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Until then, Alcatraz, Chicago, IL

2013
KUNSTKAMMER (A Cabinet of Curiosities), Apostrophe, Brooklyn, NY
Exhibit at Expansion Gallery, Lacuna Lofts, Chicago, IL
Creativity in the Workplace, Urban Alliance, Chicago, IL
20th Annual Nippon Steel & Sumimoto Metals Exhibition, Nippon Steel, Chicago IL

2012
Act I: Absence Makes It Real, Leroy Neiman Center Gallery, Chicago, IL
19th Annual Nippon Steel & Sumimoto Metals Exhibition, Nippon Steel, Chicago, IL

2011
One “Hitotsu”, Superfrog Gallery, San Francisco, CA

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2025
Schmidlin, Marie-Louise, “Frieze London 2025, Booths For Telling, Booths For Selling,” METAL. October 20
“The Radar: Mika Horibuchi, Rasoul Ashtary and Anton Munar,” Plaster Magazine, October 17

2024
Max Lakin, Mika Horibuchi Made Her Name Repainting the Work of Another Artist: Her Grandmother, CULTURED, November 21

2023
Thomas Huston, Review: Mika Horibuchi’s Showcase at PATRON Gallery, Sixty Inches From Center, June 23
Lisa Yin Zhang, The Best Shows to See in Chicago Right Now, Frieze, April 13

2022

Max Lankin, Martha Schwendener and John Vincler, What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries Right Now, New York Times, March

2020
Elizabeth Fazzare, Two Artist Transform the Gilded Age Driehaus Museum in Chicago, Cultured Magazine, October
Jonathan Hilburg, Chicago’s Driehaus Museum enlivens its historic mansion with contemporary, The Architect’s Newspaper, October
Jacqueline Lewis, A Tale of Today - Connecting Past & Present, Chicago Gallery News, September
Kerry Cardoza, Art 50 2020: Chicago’s Artists’ Artists, Newcity Art, September

2018
Stephanie Cristello, Patrick Lanford Stephenson, and Gabrielle Walsh, Drawing the Curtain: Mika Horibuchi, Issue 07 Special Edition, September
Tom Wawzenek, Mika Horibuchi Plays with Reality and Illusion in MCA Exhibit, Third Coast Review, Nov 9
Kate Sierzputowski, Chicago artist Mika Horibuchi paints oil tromp-l’oeil replicas of her grandma’s watercolors. The result is an experiment in looking at the world through someone else’s eyes, Chicago Reader

2016
Kayl Parker, Seven badass female artists who are changing the art world, Time out, June 8
Katherine McMahon, Habitat: Mika Horibuchi, Art News, Feb 5

2015
Emiliano Burr Di Mauro, 4th Ward Project Space: Mika Horibuchi, Southside Weekly, April 28
Stephanie Cristello, Chicago’s Concept-Based Group Exhibitions Show Strength in Numbers, ArtSlant, October 20
Chester Alamo-Castello, Mika Horibuchi - Familiar Reality Translations, The COMP Magazine, December 22
Viven Lesnik Weisman, Chicago Seven Bring Art to the People, Huffpost Arts & Culture, March 3

RELATED EXPERIENCE
2014
Co-founder and co-director of 4th Ward Project Space, Chicago, IL

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL