Nami Yokoyama: Dear someone, somewhere

Keteleer Gallery is very pleased to present Dear someone, somewhere, the European debut exhibition by Nami Yokoyama (b. 1986, Gifu, Japan) . Yokoyama's first solo exhibition since joining the gallery consists of an entirely new series of oil paintings, bronze sculptures and works on paper.

Can I truly feel the presence of you, of me, and of someone far away?

This question anchors the first solo exhibition by Japanese artist Nami Yokoyama at Keteleer Gallery. Driven by the conviction that a deeper sense of another's existence would make it impossible to cause one another harm, Yokoyama pursues what she calls the act of "Delivering Presence."

At the heart of the exhibition is language — not as cultural property, but as a shared vessel. As English spreads globally, its words lose fixed definition and become fluid shapes. Yokoyama traces these shapes in paintings such as Pray, I am, and History, and in Shape of Your Response — a work born from a call and its resonance — allowing words to shed their literal meaning and emerge as luminous presences, sheltering the lives of nameless individuals beyond the reach of translation.

Presence is also delivered through the body and through time. Her forever drawings accumulate by tracing the lines of the previous day, recording how memory wavers and transforms with each act of recollection.

Six small bronze figures, modelled after the artist's own body are made singular through hand-painted words and facial expressions. The seated figures wear the fragmented sentence  I / am / thinking / of / you / . , revealed one word at a time as visitors move through the space. The differences that emerge among these figures born from the same mould become a reflection of our own condition: sharing a common language, yet never becoming the same. A standing figure wears the sentence Remembering someone in the distance.

Throughout the first week of the exhibition, the artist will perform live in the gallery for three hours each day. Drawing herself lying on the grass, she will create one new copy of the same image each day, carefully retracing its lines. Despite her efforts at exact repetition, each drawing inevitably differs, changing subtly over the course of the week. This is a performance she has returned to repeatedly over the years, symbolizing the act of carrying her own unremarkable self into tomorrow.

Dear someone, somewhere. Yokoyama's call is an invitation to dialogue — across distance, across difference — connecting you, me, and someone yet to be seen.

Photography portrait: Seiichi Saito

Photography installation view: Tamotsu Kido