Untitled #175
©Ayaka Yamamoto
※Photos are for reference only.
Main Gallery Area Artist
Untitled #137
©Ayaka Yamamoto
※Photos are for reference only.
Untitled #141
©Ayaka Yamamoto
※Photos are for reference only.
Artist Information
Ayaka Yamamoto
1983 Born in Hyogo
2006 Graduated from Oil Painting Major of Faculty of Fine Art, Kyoto Seika University
2012 “Nous n'irons plus au bois” CAP STUDIO Y3 (Hyogo, Japan)
2014 “Nous n'irons plus au bois” Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film (Tokyo, Japan)
2018 “We are Made of Grass, Soil, and Trees” Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film (Tokyo, Japan)
If I tried to create human beings with all the things in this world, I would want to make it from earth, tree and grass. The word nature can be translated as “one’s true character” or as “the physical world around us.” I am always struck dumb when facing the big question of my nature or human existence. By giving things names, people feel like they can know all things in this world. When things that no longer exist appear in front of you, however, you might be able to see the nature of an existence without belonging to any one person, place, or thing.
Selector
Vice Director of Bridgestone Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation
[Comment by Selector]
Every year, just when she can feel the beginning of summer on her skin, Ayaka Yamamoto travels to Eastern Europe. Perhaps she and those she works with have found something there (not in Japan, Western Europe, or Asia) that we have lost through capital, industry, efficiency, or rationality. Of course, the lives and states of each person she photographs are different from what she as the artist or we as viewers imagine them to be. The girls who act as her subjects may simply be responding to Ayaka Yamamoto, playing the role of the girls in her fantasy world. However, Yamamoto is certainly fascinated by their beauty. I too am attracted by the power lurking in the quiet expressions of these girls.