Naoki Yamamoto “Got a Tokarev?”
We visited Naoki Yamamoto’s solo exhibition “Got a Tokarev?” The venue was THE blank GALLERY in Harajuku.
Naoki Yamamoto is an artist with a track record of exhibitions at commercial galleries, but he had put his practice on hold for a period, resuming his activities in 2017. This exhibition marks his first solo show at THE blank GALLERY.
At a glance, the works feel highly original.
His method involves faithfully reproducing images first drawn in Adobe Illustrator using acrylic paint on canvas.
He has had no formal art education and has come this far self-taught, yet one can sense the meticulous, detail-obsessed craftsmanship. It makes sense given his background as a dental technician.
What one senses from the painted surface is a flat, unblemished brush stroke. It’s a beautifully finished matière on par with Hitoshi Tsuboyama’s.
We were told he layers the paint about three times to avoid unevenness.
He also apparently never overlaps adjacent colors of paint.
You can also see a faint, transparent trace along the sides. On closer inspection, a thin, glossy layer resembling glue becomes visible.
This, we learned, is one of his techniques for keeping the paint from peeling off at the edges.
Even with the brushwork remaining flat, the works — where time and space intersect — carry a sense of depth, and we came away with the impression that our own vision was being pleasantly played with.
