2019
南条嘉毅個展 " 透ける表層、漂う大地 "
Solo Exhibition " Transparent surface, wafting earth "
Sakaide City Museum of Art (Kagawa)
Soil from the salt field site, salt-making tools, video, lighting, etc.
Sculptural support: Takuya Kamiike
Cooperation: Sakaide City Salt Industry Museum, Sakaide City Ohashi Memorial Library
2019
南条嘉毅個展 " 透ける表層、漂う大地 "
Solo Exhibition " Transparent surface, wafting earth "
Sakaide City Museum of Art (Kagawa)
Soil from the salt field site, salt-making tools, video, lighting, etc.
Sculptural support: Takuya Kamiike
Cooperation: Sakaide City Salt Industry Museum, Sakaide City Ohashi Memorial Library
The solo exhibition "Transparent Surface, Drifting Earth," held at the Sakaide City Museum of Art, focuses on the time and memories etched into the land of Sakaide. Using materials such as soil, salt, and quartz collected locally, and drawing on the history of geological strata, salt production, and the origins of cave paintings, the exhibition attempts to visualize the invisible accumulation of time. The paintings are not merely reproductions of landscapes, but rather emerge as a space that mediates between the land and human activities, bringing to light the layers of time that quietly drift.
"Transparent Surface, Drifting Earth" is an attempt by Yoshitaka Nanjo to reconsider the relationship between "place" and "time," a theme he has explored for many years, through the history and materiality of the land of Sakaide.
Room 1 displays paintings based on fieldwork that the artist has been conducting since 2000. By using soil collected on-site in his paintings, he does not merely visually reproduce the landscape, but rather transfers the time and memories accumulated in the land itself onto the canvas. Experiences of travel such as pilgrimages to Kumano, old roads, and mountain worship are superimposed, and the paintings function as a device that mediates the relationship between place and body.
In the second room, "Transparent Surface, Drifting Earth," the focus is on the history of salt production in Sakaide and the formation of geological strata. It is said that it takes thousands of years for a single meter of strata to form, but in this work, that invisible time is made visible as transparent layers, guiding the viewer to the memories inherent in the earth beneath their feet.
In Room 3, "A Story of the Sea and Salt," the materialization of time is presented through salt crystals. Salt is deeply intertwined with life, belief, and trade, and through the phenomenon of crystallization, it embodies time itself. The forms of salt hanging down like stalactites symbolize condensed time itself.
In Room 4, "Cluster," cave paintings are viewed as the origin of painting, and an attempt is made to paint directly onto quartz. Quartz is a material also used in quartz watches and is a symbol of "precise time" in the modern age. By superimposing ancient cave paintings with modern time devices, the continuity between the act of expression and the consciousness of time becomes apparent.
This exhibition is an attempt to redefine painting as a "space that encompasses time," traversing between the time and human activities accumulated on the land, and is a practice that connects the memory of Sakaide to the present.