Can I truly feel the presence of you, of me, and of someone far away?

This question anchors the first solo exhibition by Japanese artist Nami Yokoyama at Keteleer Gallery. Driven by the conviction that a deeper sense of another's existence would make it impossible to cause one another harm, Yokoyama pursues what she calls the act of "Delivering Presence."

At the heart of the exhibition is language — not as cultural property, but as a shared vessel. As English spreads globally, its words lose fixed definition and become fluid shapes. Yokoyama traces these shapes in paintings such as Pray, I am, and History, and in Shape of Your Response — a work born from a call and its resonance — allowing words to shed their literal meaning and emerge as luminous presences, sheltering the lives of nameless individuals beyond the reach of translation.

Presence is also delivered through the body and through time. Her forever drawings accumulate by tracing the lines of the previous day, recording how memory wavers and transforms with each act of recollection.

Seven small bronze figures, modeled after the artist's own body and cast from the same mold, are made singular through hand-painted words and facial expressions. Together they wear the fragmented sentence — I / am / thinking / of / you / . — revealed one word at a time as visitors move through the space. The differences that emerge among figures born from the same mold become a reflection of our own condition: sharing a common language, yet never becoming the same.

Dear someone, somewhere. Yokoyama's call is an invitation to dialogue — across distance, across difference — connecting you, me, and someone yet to be seen.

Artists: Nami Yokoyama