Mai Yokoyama: Solar Phantasm : Solo Exhibition

BACK_Y is pleased to present Solar Phantasm, a solo exhibition by Japanese artist Mai Yokoyama, opening on May 21, 2026.

Centered on the question of authenticity and perception, Yokoyama's practice examines the shifting relationship between digital image-making, painting, and time. Through works that move between iPad drawings, watercolor studies, and oil painting, the artist constructs layered visual structures in which images continuously evolve through accumulation, transformation, and residue.

For Solar Phantasm, Yokoyama draws inspiration from ancient ruins and archaeological artifacts encountered during her research travels in Italy and Greece. Rather than approaching ruins as static historical objects, the exhibition considers them as forms suspended between disappearance and persistence. Much like the layered mechanisms of digital drawing, traces of time, memory, and erosion become embedded within the image itself, where authenticity emerges not as permanence, but as a condition of continual transformation.