untitled #2025-9

After looking at vast amounts of images via various visual media including social media, Nariyama uses paint – which has physicality, to implement the vague, non-physical recollected image that remained, onto a still, flat surface. She emphasises the two characteristics of a recollected image: ambiguous shape and vivid sense of presence. One of the reference points for her work, is whether the eyeball will move about trying to focus and grasp the screen – that the screen is not orderly.

Nariyama’s paintings are like the sight we see on the edge of our vision. When one is in focus the eyes captures landscapes, things and moving people that spread from left to right, but this is seen outside the consciousness. What we can consciously see varies between the individual but is generally in the realm of 90 degrees, however, the human eye actually captures over 180 degrees.
When you look at her paintings, this unconsciously captured world starts to accumulate; the distinct nature of her layers that form a vision without you noticing, becomes addictive. The inorganic or empty feeling that comes from relying on materiality and coincidence, typical to abstract expression does not exist; there flows narrative, the sense of warmth and breath that can be felt is exceptional – it is as if you are in a jungle flooding with life energy.

（Mai Miyake）