LETTERS [No. 12 Jun 18, 2026]

mixed media(oil on UV print on canvas) / 162 x 130.3 cm
2026

Starting with black-and-white film street snaps, Ryuhei Yokoyama has captured the people passing through the city, walls, traces, and the time that accumulates there. For Yokoyama, who has picked up fragments scattered on the streets and observed the city’s “present” through photography, the street is not something predefined with meaning, but rather an accumulation of nameless stories that emit a distinct radiance only in the moment they catch someone’s eye.

The title “MEMOLYRICSCAPE” is a neologism coined by Yokoyama, combining “Memory,” “Lyrics,” and “Scape.” Memory, poetry, and landscape intertwine over time and unexpectedly emerge as fragmentary images and words. The text inscribed on the works is not intended for explanation or decoration; rather, like the act of photography itself, it is placed as a trace of a moment that caught the artist’s attention.

In this exhibition, the artist expands upon the expressive approach of his previous show. In addition to the unique texts and characters welling up from his inner world, he overlays abstract traces of paint—too impulsive to be simply called “paintings” or “drawings.” This process captures the fluctuations of memory that photography alone cannot fully capture, as well as emotions before they become words; it is also an act of leaving traces of time and the body within the works. Through the intervention of text and paint, the photographs capturing the city transcend mere documentation and emerge as “scenes” where the artist’s memories and emotions intersect. The “scenes” referred to here are not the landscapes before one’s eyes, but rather internal landscapes born when the artist’s memories, words, and the gestures of paint intersect with the traces left behind in the city.

The exhibition is planned to feature four large-scale works as its core, complemented by smaller pieces. In these works—in which photographs taken on film are printed onto canvas and then layered with oil paint—the artist draws upon the primal, analog gestures and materiality inherent in human expression. The overwriting and layering of images seen in WALL; the gaze toward time-imbued matter found in HOLES and SCARS; and the cultural and personal roots explored in LETTERS—all of these converge in this exhibition to take the form of photographs accompanied by words and paint.

Noise reminiscent of unpredictable events encountered on the street, and a tactile quality like fading memories. As Yokoyama accumulates experience and knowledge, he returns instead to his initial impulses and a sensibility as open as a wild field. We cordially invite all to this exhibition, in which photographer Ryuhei Yokoyama once again offers the unique perspectives and sensibilities he has cultivated over the years, showcasing his current position as he renews his expression with greater freedom and cheerfulness.

KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, 2026

LETTERS [No.02 July 29, 2023]

mixed media(oil on UV print on canvas) / 162 x 130.3 cm
2023

LETTERS

The novels, music, poems, or even simpler words I had encountered throughout my life.
Somehow forgotten, deep in the recesses of our unconscious memory, they have been unremarked upon. And yet, as time goes by, they become unwritten images, spinning together in an unwritten, unshakable whole.
Eventually, they became a melody that continued to make noise and echo quietly in my eyes.

Looking back on it now, it took me on a journey through the streets, through cities and landscapes, It was like a letter from far away. I will walk out into the landscape again amid a never-ending song that echoes faintly─.

WALL stanza Second

mixed media (UV print, pigment foil on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta paper, mounted on aluminum board) / 145.6 x 309 cm (Triptych)
2020

WALL crack #40

mixed media（aerosol, UV print on concrete piece） / 143 x 207 x 40 mm (Triptych)
2022

WALL SONG

The chaos of various things and objects intermingling on the street and its pure existence, positioned as one of the prominent facts that form the urban landscape, was where this series began. But as formats and approaches transformed through presentations, the motif itself became a “Wall.”

Walls are generally made use of corresponding to their negative image. Yet, I am confident that Walls can be hammered down or climbed over: whether this Wall may be various physical complexities or invisible conceptual matters.

That makes the Wall standing in front of us, right this moment, a symbol of hope for the future. Just like that scene on TV, I remember as a boy: as the Berlin Wall collapsed in the whirlwind of jubilation or as the countless revelations sparked from books and music.

WALL SONG is a hymn to freedom and hope for the anticipated future—.

STUFF / Bag

mixed media (UV print, pigment foil on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta paper) / 84.1 x 118.9 cm
2021

HOLES and SCARS

Boots wore down, a bag with cracked skin, a straw hat with frayed holes, a plastic umbrella with a broken bone. All these things danced in front of me as I walked the streets. My gaze reflected everything I had experienced through books, music, and images. The city, rebellion, and freedom told me changes were not made by glittering things but by those damaged to wear and tear.

When considering the city, which itself based on the speed of demolition and construction, the main themes running through series were “to become a new aspect through continuous loss and damage,” “to be lost through continuous addition and multiplication,” and “to continue to drift homogeneously between disappearance and emergence.” The images intentionally destroyed from the selection of media to the printing process are an act of materialization of all these themes. They also serve as a device to connect the inescapably private artist’s view of the city, as mentioned above.

HOLES and SCARS—my jeans were always damaged and torn. My time spent in the city was like that too. My photographs are neither records nor memories but the fading present.