Review: Yuriyo at Gallery 60 NYC

Jul 21
6 min read

Performance by Yuriyo at Gallery 60 NYC on July 19, 2025

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Chunbum Park

New York, NY

2025-07-21

Yuriyo's solo show titled, "Eye Know," is an ambitious and comprehensive exhibition at the Gallery 60 NYC, in which a wide range of works were put on display. The title appears to be a pun in English, since "eye" and "I" are homophones, and dual meanings emerge, with the secondary meaning being, "I know." The artist also states that the eye is representative of "cells and life itself," which suggests a posthuman spiritual understanding of consciousness and reality for the artist. The opening night began with the artist conducting a highly energetic, conceptual performance in front of an attentive audience.

The self-taught artist states that she lost her mother at a young age and has been in grief for the rest of her life, searching for the means of healing, acceptance, and finding meaning. Her life was transformed when she visited Auschwitz camp in Poland in 2019, and she began to channel the sense of injustice and sorrow into developing her art.

What are the implications of this life story presented by Yuriyo, a talented woman artist with Japanese root and identity?

The works are so visually rich and strong, absorbing the hints of German Expressionist styles that is often used as the representative visuals for the horrors of the two World Wars (for example, "The Scream," 1893, by Munch), with thick use of heavy blacks. Her ballpoint pen drawings also remind us of the graphical works of Japanese manga and anime-style artists that use more experimental or aggressive visual styles.

Yet, what needs to be made clear is the question of why the artist does not cite how her exposure to the history of similar wrongdoings by the Imperial Japan in the early to mid-20th century (in pursuit of colonialism in East and Southeast Asia) had instilled similarly profound experiences of injustice and grief within her psyche.

Was Yuriyo shielded from the history of 20th century Japan, which is often whitewashed in Japanese history books? Or was she protective of her motherland's image? Or perhaps she wanted to avoid the sensitive historical issues out of public pressure from society? These are some of the questions and assumptions that people could make about Yuriyo's work.

(The same question of historical injustices irritates the relations between Japan and South Korea, and Japan and China. It also bothers many Asians how the US thoroughly punished the Nazis for massacring the European Jews but did not mete out the same outcome for the Japanese leaders for their responsibility in the deaths of millions of Asians.)

In many of her ball pen drawings, the characters have European traits with big eyes with double eyelids, sunken eye sockets, and long pointy nose. She is interested in exploring the wretched and abysmal nature of humanity in its darkest hours, but her interest is awakened primarily through a psychological theater of white characters. The whitewashing may be happening on two levels in her work simultaneously: history and identity, in which Germany would replace Japan, and the European actors and victims, Asian actors and victims. (But it is also possible that she is drawing European characters primarily because Auschwitz is where she first became alert to the wretchedness of humanity in the context of war and violence, death, and evil.)

The first phenomenon - the whitewashing of history - may happen in Japanese history textbooks, while the second phenomenon - the whitewashing of identity - often happens in Japanese anime, in which all or most of the Japanese characters have pointy white nose, large colored eyes, blonde hair, and light skin with pink tone (sometimes). The Japanese anime style in the character designs seems to declare that Japan has now "joined the club" of the Western countries, which is exactly what the Japanese diplomat told the Chinese counterpart at the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War in the late 19th century.

Did the artist feel that the war crimes by Imperial Japan are too politically charged or sensitive and close to home, while she perceived an abstract distance to the evils of Nazi Germany? It is hard to say, and it is not easy to write all this critically with honesty because many Japanese persons will find the historical questions too politically charged or inconvenient. However, Yuriyo deserves respect and an honest criticism because she has the raw talent and a unique style and voice, and her bridging the link between the injustices that happened in two opposite sides of the globe would bring greater clarity and meaning to her work (if she is not doing that already).

Perhaps the artist is aware of the history and does indeed make works about the modern Japanese wartime history, an interest that was possibly awakened by her exposure to the history of the Nazis and the Holocaust. This is quite possible. For example, "Deferred Responsibility" (2025) appears to show Asian children, an atomic bomb, and a Japanese tank with the unit number "415" written on it. This would completely change the nature of Yuriyo's work, making the readings and criticisms above entirely moot.

Yuriyo's performance was powerful and electrical, involving swift energetic movements and mechanical moments of drill-like vibrations and effects with her body. She would paint not only on the canvas below her feet but also the clothing that she was wearing, as well as her hair. Every fresh explosion and spilling of paint would add contrast and details to the abstract image on the floor, but it would be followed by a series of dance-like movements that spread out the paint as imprints of her toes, hands, hair, and body, resulting in noise or blur on the canvas. The performance then involved the dual concept of addition and subtraction, or the dichotomy of sharpening (of detail and color contrast) and blurring. How much was she preparing to add in terms of information in-between the series of subtractions and blurs on the picture plane? How much was she gaining in terms of the physical movements outside the picture plane by introducing a series of energetic movements between the bursts of spilled paint? What was her core work - her physical performance or the abstract image on the canvas below? (Or both?)

"Eye Know" suggests that there is an observer within every one of us, within each and every cell, the "I" which is observing with its own "eye." And this act or the process of observation deals with the concept of justice, injustice, and karma. Death, in particular the death of a family member, is an infinite concept. And so is evil or injustice that is so massive in scale that it also becomes infinite in nature. Justice, too, is an infinite concept, in which we strive for it continually but are never able to attain it fully. And so is karma, which is akin to divine intervention and suggests the existence of divinity as nature itself.

Throughout her art and life, Yuriyo crossed through each of these gateways, from death to evil to justice and karma, ultimately arriving at liberation and, simultaneously, salvation. Karma is a tricky thing. Justice in some ways is mathematical: only those who are appropriately punished are worthy of salvation, and only those who have meted out the retributions against the wrongdoers will ultimately find peace and liberation.

Japan is a great power, one of G7 and a major democratic ally for the US in the Asia-Pacific region. We know so many good things about Japan, which brought us manga and anime, the Sony Walkman, and the bullet trains. So, it would be regrettable if Japan and her people dismiss history and the concept of historical justice. On an opposite but related note, Yuriyo's work would take on a completely different level of investigation and acceptance if she were exploring the same concepts of injustices, mass deaths, and violence within the context of the Japanese Imperialism in the 20th century, as a Japanese artist. It would require great sincerity and honesty. And it is quite possible that Yuriyo is already doing exactly that in a very subtle manner, destabilizing the revisionist narrative surrounding the World Wars and the Japanese expansionism in the Asia-Pacific.

Truth is often hidden because it is inconvenient to many. But we must have faith that Yuriyo is opening the gate, bridging the dots, and bringing the truth to light, whichever it may be. Especially in Yuriyo's ballpoint pen drawings, there is a sense of the light despite the heavy use of dark contrast and violent forms. They are like the black hole which glistens with emitted light despite its dark nature. And it is apparent that Yuriyo is a brave artist willing to tackle the theme of darkness itself within humanity, so that she can ultimately discover the light at the end of the tunnel.