Naoya Yokota

Lives and works in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan

Artist statement

Born in Osaka in 1990. Based in Tokyo. In his Mokusou series, Yokota works with familiar objects, historical fittings and timber carrying traces of time. Ultra-black coating suppresses reflected light, concealing grain, wear and the shadows through which depth is perceived. The object remains physically present while parts of its familiar appearance become inaccessible. His concern with the accumulation and loss of time is grounded in logging work in mountain forests and activities at disaster sites. Alongside this practice, he researches agnotology, the study of how ignorance is produced. He uses this perspective to consider the difference between information that disappears over time and information withheld through human intervention. By altering the visible traces and customary uses of objects, Yokota asks how we recognise what is before us and what we take for granted about it. Through imagining loss, his work invites viewers to consider what it means to care for the people and things present in their lives, leaving that encounter open to each viewer.

Artwork