Tori, Masao Yamamoto

Since he was a boy Yamamoto’s imagination has been captured by the sky. It’s windblown clouds and airborne creatures excite thoughts of faraway places in the terrestrial mind while the sheer physical beauty of flight is a sensation that can be felt profoundly in the body. Watching animals on the wing can elicit spiritual and instinctual experiences that feel at once very mysterious and very real, a trait shared by Yamamoto’s own work. His subjects are familiar and imbued with an intimacy that can make them seem like they could be from one’s own memories. They are often in soft focus or dramatic contrast, sepia toned, delicately flecked with gold paint or marked with small inclusions of red and blue ink. Yamamoto’s treatment of the printed image has a transcendent effect that leaves each piece resonating with gentle importance.

The fifteen works in the exhibition were selected from Yamamoto’s body of work at large and range over a span of sixteen years. "Tori" is Japanese for bird and the selection remarks on the close relationship between humanity and nature. They also exemplify the “peaceful state of mind” that Yamamoto strives to convey through his work.