traces

aaploit presents traces, a solo exhibition by Yamada Sanami, on view from May 17 through June 2, 2024. Yamada works primarily in video installation and drawing. This exhibition is organized in conjunction with "topos Design for Artist Community Vol.1," held at the Tokyo University of the Arts Gallery from May 24 through June 2.

In this exhibition, Yamada presents her latest clay animation work alongside drawings. The clay animations are produced through a process of forming shapes one by one, photographing them, and layering the results—a procedure that expresses the accumulation of time. The rawness and organic movement of the clay give viewers the sensation of observing a living organism.

Yamada is also known for exhibiting drawings as traces that emerge from her clay animation process. The drawings are shaped through clay, demonstrating their connection to the video installations. Yamada describes the two as inseparable and continuous.

Clay, by its flexible nature, holds no fixed form. Yet people carry in their minds certain shapes for clay—the form it takes in a store, or the shapes made in childhood craft. When clay is shaped, the form imagined in the mind is transferred into material. In this ordinary substance, a complex relationship exists between the absence of form, the mediation of thought, and the emergence of something new. Yamada uses clay as a medium through which these processes extend into the viewer's experience.

This exhibition centers on drawings, presented in conjunction with the exhibition at Tokyo University of the Arts Gallery.

For inquiries regarding the exhibition, works, and artist, please contact info@aaploit.com.