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Carrie Yamaoka works in what the artist refers to as an expanded field of painting, utilizing unconventional materials including reflective silver mylar film and poured layers of resin, along with experimentally-developed tactile processes such as rubbing and the lifting off of pigment, to arrive at a remarkable exploration of topography marked by the intersection of chance and intention. The dazzlingly reflective surfaces of the completed paintings draw the viewer into their endless depths, while reflecting the constantly shifting physicality of both the viewer and the environment in which they are installed. As Roberta Smith of the New York Times perhaps best described it, “Ms. Yamaoka's sumptuous yet unassuming paintings constitute a kind of Situationist Minimalism. They are physically specific and implacable, yet so vague they can almost disappear, especially if you become involved with the blurry ways they reflect their surroundings.”
In Artforum Summer 2016, Yamaoka was quoted about the interaction with her work, “Some people do not like seeing themselves. Viewers will take up a position outside of the frame, uneasy. Or it can be just the opposite. Strange-- as what one sees is never a true facsimile (an impossibility), but an inflected, chewed-up approximation of what you might call a self. Never still for long, continually in motion, where the light falls, never the same way, I am caught in the process of becoming, and in the midst of disintegrating.”
Yamaoka has had solo exhibitions in London, Brussels, Zurich, and Amsterdam, as well as her most recent solo exhibition which took place at Lucien Terras in New York in September of 2015. Her work was featured in Greater New York 2015 at MoMA/PS1, October 2015 - March 2016. Yamaoka’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, Artforum, L’Express, Time Out, Bomb, and The New Yorker, among other publications. The artist lives and works in New York.
The works below are currently available, and pricing does not include fabrication and framing.
cast flexible urethane resin, reflective mylar and mixed media dimensions variable $ 15,000
cast flexible urethane resin, reflective mylar and mixed media 50 x 13-1/2 inches $ 9,000
reflective mylar, urethane resin and mixed media on wood panel 36 x 36 inches $ 12,000
cast flexible urethane resin, reflective mylar and mixed media dimensions variable $ 15,000
The works below are currently available, and pricing does not include fabrication and framing.
From Interview Magazine: Within Carrie Yamaoka’s canvases lie galaxies of sediment and color, in patterns faint and lustrous. Staring at them feels like peering into an abyss–though in truth they are preserved in bedrocks of plastic, or mounted on wood panels. Notice, too, how they catch the light, altering slightly at every angle. This, Yamaoka explains, opens up a new world: not quite ours, but not far apart.
For a solo show at PK Shop, the retail-based extension of Paul Kasmin Gallery, about a dozen pieces line the compact space’s walls. Daylight floods in from the glass front, letting details glint and flicker. Called “Are You Experienced,” after the Patti Smith cover of the Jimi Hendrix song, the exhibition includes wood panel and cast resin pieces. Two works capture the texture of bubble wrap, created as the artist rubbed away a superimposed layer of reflective mylar.
In Yamaoka’s mind, viewers should see, or search for, whatever they’d like. “I’m not interested in composing a picture,” says the artist, who does not use paintbrushes. “I leave room for the viewer to complete the picture in the end.”
It is difficult, though, to make sense of the smooth surfaces, which sometimes pucker and undulate beneath a solid translucent layer. And Yamaoka gets a lot of technical questions. “People get caught up in the mystery of how it’s made,” she shares. “But that demystifies the whole thing. In the long run, you’re seeing something, right? You’re seeing something that’s just there: the result of the process.”
Materials, in states of suspended animation, seem to be moments away from taking shape. “Have you ever worked in a dark room, in the analog days, when you worked with chemicals?” Yamaoka asks. “You know the moment when you stick the blank photo paper into the developer tray? And the image starts to come up? It’s the moment when you’re seeing something emerge, but it’s not readable yet. That’s the moment I’m interested in.”