Yoshiyuki Umehara’s solo exhibition ‘Yamano-hi’

ARTDYNE is pleased to present Yoshiyuki Umehara’s solo exhibition ‘Yamano-hi’ from 29 Sep (Fri) – 22 Oct (Sun) 2023.

Umehara was born in 1997 and graduated from Tama Art University in 2020 with a degree in oil painting from the Department of Painting, and is currently one of the most sought-after young artists in the field. On display will be his ‘FACE’ series, which he continues to produce as his lifework, and his ‘Mountain’ series, which depicts his hometown and is the main theme of the exhibition.

The paintings are composed of thick layers of paint applied with a painting knife, and their unique colours and touch give them both a profound and light quality, revealing the peculiar multilayered nature of Umehara’s work. Umehara depicts faces and mountains with various expressions of laughter, anger, sadness, moodiness and disquiet, but they are also beings that bridge the gap between God and man, as if they were children, fairies or angels, and appear before us as mysterious landscapes with a certain sublime quality alongside their humour.

In this exhibition, 15 new works, including a large work (No. 80), will be exhibited and sold. We sincerely hope that you will take this opportunity to view and appreciate the works.

Artist Statement.

In my home town (Myogi-cho) there are rocks and mountains named after creatures and things. For example, ‘Grandma and Grandpa’, ‘Married Couple Rock’, ‘Cannon Rock’, ‘Dolphin Rock’, ‘Poodle Rock’, ‘Mickey Rock’ and ‘Arafune Mountain’. In addition, the school song of the primary schools I attended contains the lyrics: ‘The noble big character in the woods looks like my strict father’ and ‘The big butterfly watching over me in the schoolyard looks like my gentle mother’. It certainly looks like that. The gazes that are released from me to the mountains and the large ginkgo trees seem to take on the forms of ‘old and old women’ and ‘mother and father’ as they look at me.

The attempt to paint or look at a painting is similar to this. The gaze of the viewer or the artist on the painting bounces back and looks inward. The gaze I feel from the rock is not sent by the ‘old man and old woman’ but my own gaze, and the gaze sent by the painted face is my own gaze. I look at the mountains and paint because I want to see something in the gaze.

Yoshiyuki Umehara