What do I think about when I think about Junko Yamamoto’s “All Is One”? The puffy pillows, mainly. And how they slightly move as the viewers’ bodies push around the air in the space, causing them to turn on an axis. And you can rotate with them, the piece is designed to be viewed from every angle, all 360 degrees. The soft, plush sculptures that hang from the arms of the mobile form almost-recognizable shapes and objects: a flower, a stegosaur, a cactus, a speech bubble, a robin’s egg. Though, they are dreamier than anything in the known world.
This giant mobile by Seattle-based artist Yamamoto is currently hanging on the top floor of King Street Station. It’s part of Brighter Future: To be heard. To be seen. To be free, a group show organized by the Ethnic Heritage Art Gallery (EHAG) Board, a collective of City of Seattle employees who showcase local artists of color. Every single artist that submitted their work to the open call asking what it meant to be heard, to be seen, to be free was accepted to the show, which features 100 artworks.
“All Is One” is right at the entrance to the exhibition. Yamamoto does not exclusively work in sculpture; she’s a painter as well. But the different mediums contain similar shapes—like the speech bubble and the shape above, which resembles an abstract cactus. She has said that the circular forms that “reappear and disappear in all of the pieces signal consciousness and interconnectedness. My creations show my indebtedness to the forms of Japanese popular culture; particularly comic books.”
A bit hard to capture on camera, the mobile is playful and charming; a burst of color against the gray concrete of the space. The exhibition it’s part of, Brighter Future: To be heard. To be seen. To be free., is up until January 11, 2020, at King Street Station—don’t miss it.
