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Born with a rare condition, the artist has chronicled her life in portraits – capturing everything from her tattooed prosthetics to the tentacled creature she stitched together on the shores of Naoshima. Katayama was born with tibial hemimelia, an extremely rare condition that stops bones in the lower legs from fully developing, often leaving them foreshortened. In her case, the condition also caused club feet and a cleft left hand that resembled a crab’s pincers. Consequently, crab motifs recur in the work of the Japanese artist, who was also born under the sign of Cancer. Katayama is a star in the making, her work already attracting notice from collectors and curators in Europe and America – a rarity in the vibrant but insular world of Japanese contemporary art. Remarkably, Katayama never set out to be an artist. Her intricately embroidered and stuffed objects – inlaid with lace, seashells, hair, crystals and collaged images – were made purely for her own amusement. And art was far from her mind when she began to take portraits of herself. Here: In My Room (2009). An early self-portrait, taken in Katayama’s childhood bedroom by her four-year old sister. (Photo by Mari Katayama/The Guardian)
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