Born 1999 in Tokyo, Japan.
Ayane Yamamoto’s works embody a clear anger beneath a veil of quietude. This anger arises from things that should never have been obscured being blurred, and from prolonged silence forced upon her in the face of dishonesty and deceit.
It is not an anger that is resolved through forgiveness; rather, it is a feeling she has carried deliberately to protect herself, quietly burning at the core of her work. Her pieces deeply reflect her personal experiences ̶ particularly the anger she has feltin her private life, her relationship with her brother who has developmental disabilities, and the role and solitude she has experienced as a sibling caregiver.
While rooted in her individual memories, these elements connect with universal emotions, enabling a shared sense of silence and struggle with the viewer. The figures she depicts do not speak. Yet their silence is not emptiness but an explicit stance of rejection and accusation. The stillness that permeates her canvases is not the absence of emotion but rather the overflow of feelings that have reached a breaking point beyond words. These figures gaze back unflinchingly at the pain and misery that others have tried to erase or deny.
The exhibition Not Yet Quiet is named for emotions that remain unresolved, unaccepted, and unforgiven. It is a refusal to feign calm, and a space that affirms both the validity and complexity of anger.
Yamamoto embraces anger not as something to suppress, but as a creative energy that reconnects memory and restores existence, continuously engaging with painting as a means of reclamation.
