kai yoda

Lives and works in Paris, France

Artist statement

There is a moment when an image stops being something you look at and starts becoming something you feel. Kai Yoda's work exists precisely in that fragile territory. His recent solo exhibition The Animal We Carry marked a significant new chapter, but what continues to resonate goes far beyond a single exhibition. After a decade developing the collective practice of Ittah Yoda, his solo work turns inward, exploring the elusive space where instinct, memory and desire take shape before language. What makes his practice compelling is the way it embraces contradiction. Painting meets AI, yet technology is used to produce uncertainty rather than perfection. Figures emerge, dissolve and return. Leather, beeswax, scent and handmade pigments remind us that images are not only seen, but carried by the body. At a time when pictures have become infinitely reproducible, Kai is interested in what cannot be generated so easily: presence, intimacy and the physical memory of experience. Those are the artists worth keeping an eye on. Kai Yoda (born in Tokyo in 1985, lives and works between Paris and Tokyo) studied environmental information at KEIO University in Tokyo before earning an MFA in Photography and Moving Image from the Royal College of Art in London in 2011. His work has recently been featured in solo exhibitions at Bremond Capela, Paris, FR; Jérôme Poggi Gallery, Paris, FR; ROH, Jakarta, ID ; and the Centre International d’Art et du Paysage de l’Île de Vassivière, FR. His work is...

Artwork