Through my paintings I would like to express a certain feeling. It is like staring absently at a river flow. I would say that everything loses its meaning and appears in front of us just as it is. It is also like the feeling of being in a dream, constantly sidetracked from one’s purpose, just playing and going somewhere, losing track of time. This sense has been pursued by surrealists in their exploration of the world of dreams and the unconscious, and by magic realists in their attempts to uncover the truth of sacred time hidden in the everyday mundane landscape. My motivation is to express these sensations and to create paintings that make the world seem more intimate. It may be similar to the ancient Chinese monks who meditated and kept the sensations in their paintings. For me, art is a way to connect reality with something sacred, just as many of the clergy used to be involved in painting.
Moemi Yamamoto (1985, Japan) is a visual artist based in Prague whose painting practice explores the subtle thresholds between memory, dreams, and personal refuge. Her works oscillate between concrete urban reality and its dreamlike echo, composing scenes like palimpsests where recognizable architecture melts into floating fragments of the subconscious.
By bypassing strict linear perspective in favor of traditional Japanese parallel perspective and Gothic stylization, Yamamoto disrupts conventional perceptions of space and time. In her compositions, time appears frozen; figures wander or observe aimlessly, escaping the everyday flow of time as participating witnesses within quiet, monastic architectures, dense forests, or curiosity cabinets. Her precise technique in tempera and oil captures moments of stillness, alienation, and a poetic, sacred atmosphere.
Moemi Yamamoto earned her M.F.A. from Tohoku University of Art and Design in Japan (2011) and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Josef Bolf’s studio (2022). She received the Discovery of the Year Award from the Czech Academy of Visual Arts in 2022. Yamamoto has exhibited widely across Europe and Asia, including solo shows at Bold Gallery, SPZ Gallery, White & Weiss Gallery (Bratislava), and GAVU Cheb. She has presented her work at international art fairs such as SWAB Barcelona and ART TAIPEI, and her practice is represented in numerous public and private collections.