Ayaka Yamamoto "Sand, Water and Dust"

This will be her fourth solo exhibition at Taka Ishii Gallery, featuring a series of photographs taken in 2023 in Georgia, a country located on the border between Europe and Asia, known for its unique culture and history.
Yamamoto has been photographing young women she encountered in foreign lands, capturing their elusive, almost empty forms that are not typically seen. Recently, she has been observing people who have lived in the same place for a long time, believing that human beings are like mirrors reflecting the land, and she notes that there are moments when they almost look like portraits of the land itself. The hollow figures of the women Yamamoto captures also contain the time, climate, and culture of the land, as if the vast memories of the land itself are vaguely floating around. Yamamoto herself moved to Okinawa two years ago, and the rich natural environment has changed her body and soul, bringing about a gradual transformation in her artistic style. In this exhibition, a previously unexplored approach can be seen through her fresh experiment of presenting portrait works paired with landscape photographs connected to the individuals. Although the two works are independent of each other, their juxtaposition elevates them into pieces that interact with the subject's deep-seated memories of the land.

Phpto: Ayaka Yamamoto, "Untitled #430, Kvemo Kartli, Georgia", 2023, C-print © Ayaka Yamamoto　 Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film