YAYOI DEKI

While Deki received formal training in the fine arts at the Kyoto College of Art, her artistic style has not altered much from the time she entered school, attesting to her natural talent. She rapidly achieved professional milestones, participating in the Venice Biennale in her early 20s. The artist’s most well known piece Tentenpo (1997-1999) is representative of her distinct painting style. At first glance, it is a painting of a large close-up of a girl’s face, but there are more stories in its detailing. It is an unfinished piece that the artist estimates will measure 30m in length, when completed.

Through finger-stamping, Deki creates vibrant, intoxicating paintings that almost seem intergalactic. Her unique method of painting and the images generated through it are a result of hallucinations the artist has experienced since she was a child. Finger-stamping allows her to keep up with these visions as they appear in her mind. At the mental source of this visual profusion is a place the artist calls Nanaka-mura, where she claims to live. Deki is not afraid to incorporate her personal thoughts and life into her work, revealing her love in Untitled (Francesco & Yayoi) (2001) and introducing her pet Chihuahuas in PANDY & MIKO (2014).

Deki’s works are full of images that can be described as girlish with rainbow-like gradations that emanate a sense of joy. Her use of colours is an equally distinctive characteristic of her work as her finger-stamp patterns. Some of her paintings rely on a limited colour palette, such as those in her National Flags series (2013-2014) with distorted flag images that can only be recognized by the hues used. But in most of her works, the ebullient colours that fill up her paintings are bursting with energy that almost cannot be contained on canvas.

Deki has held solo exhibitions at Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo (2000) and Gallery Trax in Yamanashi, Japan (2001). Her works have been displayed in group exhibitions including Ground Zero Japan, Mito, Japan (1999), the 7th Venice Architecture Biennale (2000), Urgent Painting, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2002), the 7th Lyon Biennale (2003), and Roppongi Crossing 2007: Future Beats in Japanese Contemporary Art in Japan, Tokyo (2007). Her painting Tentenpo is part of the permanent collection at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan.

Text by Makiko Arima