Nami Yokoyama Japan, b. 1986

Nami Yokoyama (b. 1986, Gifu, Japan) is a contemporary Japanese painter based in Aichi (JP) whose work examines the relationship between words, value, memory and identity. After completing her BFA (2010) and MFA (2012) in painting at Aichi University of the Arts, she developed a practice centred on still lifes and neon motifs that question how language shapes perception. Her oeuvre also extends to other media, including delicate ceramics and intimate drawings.

Yokoyama is particularly interested in words, especially universally charged terms such as “love”, “history” and “pray”—standardized words with clear definitions, often thrown around casually, yet lived and experienced in vastly different ways. In her Shape of your words series, she transforms such words, handwritten by acquaintances, into meticulously painted neon signs—"portraits” of words, as she calls them. By carefully rendering both the luminous tubes and the supporting wires behind them, she draws a parallel between the visible “shape” of a word and the hidden structures that sustain its meaning.

“I faithfully reproduce words handwritten at my request by people I know to make the neon motifs, then render these on canvas down to the finest detail, in an attempt to present to the viewer the shapes of people’s words as clearly unique entities in their own right.”

In earlier works, Yokoyama painted discarded everyday objects—empty toilet rolls, food remnants, packaging—in series such as The first object. Removed from their function and illuminated on a table, these items are depicted with meticulous attention, freed from the “fate” assigned to them as disposable objects. In Golden objects, she painted gold-coloured items on wooden panels and displays them without hierarchy, subtly challenging conventional associations of gold with value and prestige.

From early in her career, Yokoyama reflected on her admiration for Western culture and oil painting, connecting it to her experience of growing up Japanese while idolizing Western ideals. Rather than confronting the long history of Western painting as an insurmountable barrier, she turns to what lies “at her own feet”: ordinary, overlooked objects. Through this approach, she seeks to release both things and herself from predefined meanings, revealing what she describes as the primordial beauty inherent in simple existence.

 

Nami Yokoyama has exhibited internationally in exhibitions across Japan, Europe, and Asia. She had solo exhibitions in Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu (2021-22) and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2019). Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art; The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Mori Art Museum; Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery; and many more. Yokoyama has also participated in major international art fairs such as Frieze Seoul, further establishing her presence within the global contemporary art scene. She was awarded the Nissan Art Prize – Audience Award in 2017.