In Moemi Yamamoto's paintings, strange motifs detached from human relationships play humorously between dream and reality. Their innocent play in timelessness may seem a bit disturbing to us, who lead our rational lives in efficient times. However, it can also be seen as a serious play, which aims to break the viewer out of the sense of uniformity and emptiness of modern times.

For Moemi Yamamoto (b. 1985), dreams are an inspiring aspect of life as well as a kind of safe haven. She writes some of them down, to become the starting point for her paintings, which in this respect can be considered biographical, although they reflect the hidden life of the subconscious rather than our waking existence. Nor do they avoid waking life, since they do not rely on the dream imagination in their entirety. As a result, they exude a peculiar timelessness, a state which generally speaking seems closer to the past than to the technology-laden and virtually-experienced present. Their un-reality is further enhanced by their distinctive visual mode. The Japanese sense of flatness and parallel perspective, combined with a Gothic stylization of the faces and the proportional canon, which serves almost exclusively to define the contours and directions of movement, create an unsettling atmosphere on the canvas that tantalizes and automatically reinforces one’s concentration in reading the painting.