Yoshimi Arts is pleased to announce we are holding Shiho Yamamoto’s fourth solo exhibition in four years, “Break the mound”, at our gallery.

Yamamoto has consistently explored various interrelationships between humans, and the flora and fauna that have survived as species throughout the earth’s long history. As she examines similarities and relationships among them from a biological perspective, she perceives that these beings maintain a beautiful form, despite adapting and changing to continue to thrive despite environmental shifts.
Plants, for example, creep up the walls of man-made structures built for efficient human life; or they may sprout from gaps in the concrete and asphalt, making these their habitat, as if coexisting with humans while being apart from the natural environment. Yamamoto portrays the images of humans and plants acclimating to changing environments from a biological perspective, and also in anthropomorphic and metaphorical ways, in the context of an existence in harsh societal conditions.

In the process of undertaking her creative activities with such awareness, Yamamoto realized that although many materials and tools used today in Japanese painting are artificially made, they were originally derived from animals and plants. She has started to focus on the reusability of papers and pigments used in Japanese painting. Produced from natural materials born from Japan’s climate; papers could be remade, much like “Asakusa-gami”, a recycled paper popular during the Edo period, and pigments could be reused after being washed with water and returning to their original granular mineral status. To enhance her awareness and understanding of such materials, Yamamoto visited workshops in different regions, such as Mino in Gifu Prefecture and Otake in Hiroshima Prefecture, both known for papermaking, and Kumanocho in Hiroshima, which is famous for its production of brushes. She also had hands-on experience at Kobaien, the manufacturer of sumi ink in Nara. Deepening her understanding of materials leads Yamamoto to consider the concept of the reverse path of deconstruction from artworks to materials; that is, “once-formed things can be broken down, as if reversing time".

This exhibition will reconstruct her solo exhibition held at gallery G in Hiroshima in 2022, comprising works featuring subjects that are rendered materials sourced from Mt. Chausu, behind her home, including plants and soil, traces of animals that live on the mountain, and plants surviving in the gaps of artificial objects. Furthermore, the exhibition intentionally aligns three aspects — “production”, “consumption”, and “decomposition”—with “plants”, “animals”, and “destructive elements” accordingly, and contemplates the ecosystem's balance, while acknowledging the interplay among these three elements."