still image, courtesy of the artist

A Bite of Bone

A reflection on A Bite of Bone (2021) by Honami Yano, written by Shen Xin.

What is the basic quality flowing through grief, when described in shapes and colours? Can it arise from the same ground as what depicts the shape of a face, and what paints the fear of the unknown?

With skilfulness in not rejecting what moves through us, the artist returns the state of recognition to its rawness.

A direct experience at a funeral of a loved one, could encompass pain felt in the folded legs, involuntary hunger in the stomach, the discomfort of sunglasses, the unanswerable doubts about where to stand, and which fingers to let loose while holding the photo frame.

Honami Yano’s drawing hands at once grab hold of and depict the loss of one’s agency regarding death. Frame by frame, dot by dot, what is drawn becomes a mirror of what is possible. The site that is a bomb storage harbouring potential of violence enacted upon, the object that is the mala beads dissipate and reforme as the faces of the funeral attendees — these minutes where the reflection of death inhabit, make space for recognising gestures that have the potential to transform relatedness, be it gestures of the everyday, or of elemental shifts occurring in movements.

a landscape of mountains in ocean like dots composed by shades of green dots — still image, courtesy of the artist

Separation is an illusion, a temporary instalment payable by conscious creative acts. Mountains resembling sharks and whales shift the boundaries of ocean and land. The darkness that has once prevailed and stained the fish in the ocean is but a dreamed image of what’s on the dinner table.

The agency of death in one’s life possesses the pervasiveness of tilting movements and its causes. Unceasing transfigurations reveal the nature of a continuous awareness, where scale becomes immeasurable.

What do you see, in its clear composition into discontinuity?

Bones draw sounds, bones become ashes. The omnipresence of relations flourish as pine trees.

How long does it take each of us to reach the sea from our houses?

A dreamy pointillist-style coastal harbor scene with small boats floating in pale turquoise water between two docks. Rounded green-and-orange hills rise in the background beneath a soft blue sky streaked with dotted clouds. In the foreground, a winding dark rope or hose lies across a sandy shoreline, while the entire image is composed of colorful sprayed dots that create a hazy, watercolor-like effect. — still image, courtesy of the artist

What pulls the viewers closer are also “the waves driven by big boats heading towards the army port in Kure”, this does not exist only as images. The relative breathes through cautionary signs, steps beyond fear layered to be overcome by a child. The ground is between what remains at once vertical and horizontal.

When creativity of the mind is allowed to maintain its appearance while also being restrained by it, through the labour of care that brought it to life, boundaries continue to break down between what is contained and the nature of its dwelling place.

A Bite of Bone

Two stylized figures with dark rounded hairstyles walk side by side along a curved path through a lush green landscape. One figure wears bright pink and red tones, while the other wears brown and yellow. The scene is rendered in a dotted, impressionistic style with swirling green, blue, and black marks suggesting grass, foliage, and movement. — still image, courtesy of the artist

Honami Yano

Born in 1991 on a small island in the Seto Inland Sea, Ehime, Japan. During her college years in Kyoto, she went on an exchange program to the Rhode Island School of Design, where she discovered independent animation. After completing her graduate studies at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts, she made her graduation film Chromosome Sweetheart (2017), which received the KuanDog Prize at the KuanDu International Animation Festival and was selected for Frameline41, among other festivals.
Her film A Bite of Bone (2021) received the Grand Prize for Short Animation at the 45th Ottawa International Animation Festival, Best Short Animation at the 29th Raindance Film Festival, the New Face Award at the 25th Japan Media Arts Festival Animation Division, and 28 other awards internationally.

Alongside her filmmaking practice, she researches sexuality and gender in animation and curates screening programs focused on queer animation. She is currently enrolled in the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. She is a co-author of Queer Cinema Studies (edited by Yuka Kanno, Koyo Shobo). Her client work includes the ending animation for the TV anime TRIGUN STAMPEDE, Sayonara no Mukō ni for NHK’s Minna no Uta (sung by Kōhei Matsushita), and the music video Hadaka no Yume for Bialystocks.

Her latest film, Eri (2026), is a short animation co-produced by Au Praxinoscope (Japan) and MIYU Productions (France), adapted from Kasumi Asakura’s novel Who Else Is There? (Gentosha Inc., 2008).

Biography accessed from Honami's website, to learn more please visit: https://honamiyano.com/