Year: 2022
Medium: ceramic
Dimensions: 14.9 x 7.9 x 11 cm (5 7/8 x 3 1/8 x 4 3/8 in.), excluding pedestal
Acquired from Mitsukoshi Contemporary Gallery, 2022
This is a small ceramic sculpture that fits in one’s palm. It depicts a seated girl tinged with blue while holding a large bottle on her lap. The exterior of the bottle is orange, while the interior is bright yellow, creating a vivid color contrast with the girl’s blue figure. This work is reminiscent of Yamamoto’s drawings with the motifs of girls and water, which were common in his early career. Although organic forms such as mushrooms and plants with their highly abstract depictions have been used frequently in his recent works, the more figurative depictions with a human figure as the motif stood out in his works from the beginning. In his most recent work, the mushroom-like image has been internalized deep within the artist’s mind, suggesting a surface-level return to his earlier figurative expressions. If one were to interpret it in this way, perhaps the wide-mouthed bottle in this work could be seen as bearing a mushroom-like form. Since this is a ceramic work, its material ultimately traces back to clay. The artist’s statement from the solo exhibition (Nihombashi Mitsukoshi Contemporary Gallery, 2022) of this work reads, “To me, I think that the subject of my interest is in the soil which cannot be seen by the naked eye.” What we usually recognize as mushrooms is called the fruiting body, which is a flower or fruit in a plant, while the mycelium, which is the main body of the organism, spreads out like a web in the ground. As Yamamoto himself suggests, this microcosmos of invisible microorganisms spreading in the soil is overlaid with his own imagination. As a result, his organic and even grotesque expression has continued till now. In this work, what the artist refers to as unseen has been kneaded with the clay and hidden inside the work, so it is not visible on the surface. Yamamoto grasps the appearance of mushrooms emerging softly from the forest floor to be something adorable, like the image of this girl, and this work should indeed be viewed as such a sensibility. However, this is based on the knowledge that a vast web of mycelium that governs the reduction of life is hidden within this loveliness and in the soil beneath her feet. Herein lies the inevitability of Yamamoto’s belief that he must engage directly with the clay through his ceramic works.
