この度、PARCELでは、横山奈美による個展「Delivering Presence」を開催いたします。

横山はこれまで、西洋絵画への憧れと自身の劣等感という感覚を起点に、「叶わない憧れ」とどのように向き合うことができるのかという内省的な問いを軸に制作を続けてきました。初期の作品では、使用済みのカードやトイレットペーパーの芯など、日常の中で消費され捨てられていく身近な対象を丁寧に描いた静物画シリーズを発表しています。そこには、日常に埋もれがちな物の存在感や美しさを改めて見つめ直そうとする視線がありました。

やがて横山の関心は、自身の制作を成立させている関係性そのものへと向けられていきます。配電線やフレームを「自分自身」に投影して描く《Neon》シリーズ（2016年〜）では、ネオン管だけでなく、それを支える電線やフレームまでを克明に描写することで、作品の背後にある緊張や支え合いの構造が可視化されていきました。そこでは、光として現れるネオンの背後にある見えない関係性が、絵画の中に静かに現れます。

近年制作を続けている「Shape of Your Words」シリーズ（2022年〜）では、横山の関心はさらに他者へと開かれていきます。本シリーズでは、友人や知人などが書いた言葉をもとにネオン管の形を描き出し、ガラス管だけでなく電線やフレームまで細密に描写することで、言葉を発した身体や存在の気配を画面の中に呼び込もうとしています。言葉は単なる意味としてではなく、誰かがそこに存在していた痕跡として扱われます。

横山の作品に通底しているのは、目に見える形の背後にある存在や関係性へと目を向ける姿勢です。ネオンという物質的な構造、あるいは言葉という痕跡を手がかりにしながら、作品はその背後にある身体や気配へと意識が向けられています。

内省的な問いから出発した横山の制作は、次第に他者の存在を受け入れ、その関係性を見つめる方向へと広がりつつあります。見過ごされがちな対象や言葉を丁寧に描きとめることで、そこに潜む存在の重みを画面へと運び込むこと。
本展タイトル「Delivering Presence」は、そうした横山の実践を象徴する言葉でもあります。

Shape of Your Words [in Shanghai, 2024/11/26-11/28], 2026, Photo by Tamotsu Kido

Delivering Presence / Nami Yokoyama

「あなたや私、見知らぬ誰かの存在を、どうしたら確かに感じられるだろう」

この問いが、私の制作の出発点です。もし私たちが、遠く離れた誰かの存在を自分自身の存在と同じように感じられたなら、お互いを傷つけ合う愚かさに気づけるかもしれない。その仮説をもとに、私は「存在を届ける（Delivering Presence）」という行為を続けています。

私の作品において、英語はもはや特定の誰かのための言語ではなく、あらゆる背景を持つ人々が交差するための器です。世界中に広まり、本来の定義が曖昧になった言葉たちのかたちをなぞるとき、それらは固定された意味を離れ、言葉を書いたその人自身が浮かび上がります。本展で並ぶ「I am」や「Here」を描いた絵画、そして私が「where」と問い、友人が「here」と応じた新作「Shape of Your Response」は、単なる情報のやり取りではありません。言葉が意味を脱ぎ捨ててかたちとして出現するとき、そこには翻訳を超えた、誰かの存在そのものが現れます。

この存在を届けるという試みは、私自身の身体を通じても行われます。自身の年齢分だけ型取りを繰り返す錫のインスタレーションは、私の命の時間を直接的に切り出す試みです。柔らかい錫が型取りのたびに輪郭をぼやけさせ、やがて人の形を失っていくプロセスは、世界中に広がり輪郭を広げていく言葉のありようとも重なります。

これらの作品が、不確かな存在を他者へと橋渡しする一つの方法として、あなたと、私と、誰かの存在を繋ぐ、実体を持った対話の場となることを願っています。

ー横山奈美

Detail from Shape of Your Words [in Shanghai, 2024/11/26-11/28], 2026, Photo by Tamotsu Kido

PARCEL is pleased to present Delivering Presence, a solo exhibition by Nami Yokoyama.

Yokoyama’s artistic practice has been consistently driven by an inquiry into how the apparatus of painting can deconstruct and reconstruct the historical distance she feels toward the Western tradition of “oil painting,” alongside the emotional catalysts of “unrequited longing” and “inferiority”. In her early series, The First Object, she employed meticulous realist techniques to depict items destined for disposal, such as toilet paper cores. The series is an attempt to liberate such things from the functional purpose that had defined their value, converting them into presences that simply exist. In doing so, the work subverts existing systems of value while reflecting on the very necessity of painting.

The Neon series, developed from 2016 onward, sought to make visible the “unseen presences” that support a structure. Electrical wiring and frames concealed behind luminous glass tubing are rendered with painstaking attention to detail. While bearing the qualities of an introspective self-portrait in which reflections of herself can be seen on the subject, this work can also be understood as a deconstructive approach that lays bare the material tensions existing behind the light.

However, social turbulence and an unprecedented pandemic that followed in quick succession disrupted the inward focus of Yokoyama’s thinking, compelling her to reconsider the role of autonomous painting. What had once been a journey of self-inquiry was transformed, through the experience of social isolation from the world, into a pressing need to ask “how might we connect with others”. This shift carried Yokoyama’s works beyond the boundaries of the self, toward an open form of expression which made room for the presence of others.

Moving from introspective self-inquiry toward a more open expression, one carried by the awareness that “someone is here,” Yokoyama embarks on a new series by “tracing another’s handwriting” in the Shape of Your Words. This recent series evolved into the new work Shape of Your Response, in which a friend replies to a question posed by the artist. Words are stripped of their dictionary meanings and given a “body” in neon form, turning into a mark that carries another person’s presence beyond the bounds of language.

This exhibition also introduces a new installation made of tin. Each year of the artist’s life is marked by a single cast taken from the one before. The materiality of tin gradually losing its shape through repetition resonates with the nature of “words” as they spread through the world and become more vague in their definitions. The work also serves as a metaphor that bridges the artist’s own finite “life-time” with the presence of others.

Running through all of Yokoyama’s work is a disposition toward the presences and relationships that lie behind visible form. Taking the material structure of neon and the words as markings as a point of departure, her works direct our attention toward the physical form and presence that exist behind them.

Departing from introspective questioning, Yokoyama’s practice has gradually expanded in the direction of taking in the presence of others and embracing those relationships. By carefully attending to overlooked subjects and words, Yokoyama captures the latent presence within each subject on to her painting to share with the viewers.

The exhibition title Delivering Presence speaks directly to the heart of Yokoyama’s practice.

Detail from Shape of Your Words [in Shanghai, 2024/11/26-11/28], 2026, Photo by Tamotsu Kido

Delivering Presence / Nami Yokoyama

“How can we truly feel the presence of you, and me, and someone we’ve never met?” This question forms the starting point of my practice. If we could truly feel the presence of someone far away—someone we’ve never even met—just as we feel our own, maybe we would all see how foolish it is to hurt one another. This premise underlies my ongoing act of “Delivering Presence.”

In my work, English is no longer a language belonging to any particular person; it becomes a vessel through which people of all backgrounds may meet. When I trace the outline of words that have spread across the world and its meaning blurred over time, those words slip free from their fixed definition, and the person who wrote them begins to emerge. The paintings of “I am” and “Here” presented in this exhibition, alongside the new work “Shape of Your Response” in which I posed the question “where” and a friend replied “here,” cannot be reduced to the exchange of information. When a word sheds its meaning and appears as pure form, what emerges goes beyond translation, as the presence of another person.

This act of delivering presence is also carried out through my own body. The tin installation, where a cast sculpture is made for every year of my life, is a direct attempt of making the time I have lived physically present. With each casting made from the previous year, the soft tin loses its shape, blurring until the human form dissolves. This process resonates with the nature of words as they spread through the world, their contours expanding and dissolving.

My hope is that these works offer a way of delivering wavering presence to others, becoming a site of tangible encounter that binds your existence, mine, and that of a stranger.

— Nami Yokoyama