ABOUT
ART FOR THOUGHT is pleased to present the solo exhibition of Nodoka Yamaura, “Sensing the presence of deep night and light morning.”, as “the foundry” series vol. 6.
Morning and night, beauty and awe, the visible and invisible - the sensibility that the artist glimpsed through the night cherry blossoms delicately unravels the known and evokes a soft perception.
We invite you to view the artist's new works that explore the cyclic world with a contemporary sensibility that she has discovered through her encounter with washi and her move to Tokushima.
ARTIST STATEMENT
On the evening of April 2, I suddenly felt like “I wanna go see the cherry blossoms at night” and decided to drive there when it was getting dark.
I drove off the national highway onto a mountain road. I had heard that the weeping cherry trees along this road were beautiful, so I drove on, wondering if the entire area was covered in them.
Illuminated by orange electric lights, they were cherry blossoms I had never seen before. They were more frightening than beautiful. After passing through a tunnel, I turned left and drove about 2 km, alone through the pitch-dark mountain road. The darkness and cliff road made me feel more and more uneasy. The cherry blossoms were not illuminated when I arrived, and although I was disappointed that I had relied on uncertain information, I decided it would be a waste to turn around there and drove a few minutes further to see the nighttime cherry blossoms a little further down the road. This place was lit up. I was relieved to arrive there, for I had been heading there with a desperate hope, but the rows of cherry trees spread out in front of me were still somewhat scary rather than beautiful. I stayed at my friend's house and drove down the mountain early in the morning. I was a little relieved when I saw the colors and shapes of the cherry blossoms I knew.
I came to feel strongly after this day that the beauty and the fear of things are inextricably intertwined and they are two sides of the same coin.
Apologies for a lengthy preamble, but since that day, my consciousness has been haunted by the presence of deep night, as well as that of the light morning.
The information you see is not all there is. Even if what you thought was different from what was in your head, it still exists, and it is certainly there in front of you, just not visible. Even in that moment, light dwells and breathes in the emotions and life.
Although it is still vaguely interpreted, the word "presence" is bothering me right now.
Maybe I am drawing the presence itself.
See the artworks available online.
— About “the foundry” series —
"the foundry" is an exhibition series that highlights young artists who challenge themselves to express themselves through a cross between traditional Japanese crafts and contemporary art.
Originally, Japanese art had an aspect of being a tool for daily life. As household utensils and furnishings, they were used to bring seasons and ideas into the room, and to gently enhance and individualize everyday life. This series is an attempt to reintroduce that application of lifestyle to modern society, in order to enrich and make comfortable our ordinary lives.
Ginza, Tokyo was once a place where silver coins were minted and permeated as a lubricant for daily life during the Edo period. Through this exhibition series, we start a new and quiet challenge to find Japanese art as a beauty of utility once again, leveraging both traditional Japanese techniques and the expressiveness of contemporary art.