Fulcrum

DDDART is pleased to present “Fulcrum,” a solo exhibition by contemporary artist Yuuki Iwama, opening on August 1, 2026. This exhibition marks Iwama’s second solo presentation at DDDART, following her 2025 exhibition.

Born and raised in Kanagawa, Iwama has long engaged in a dialogue with nature and the invisible yet undeniably present forces that surround us, translating these encounters into painting since childhood. Her practice has gradually expanded beyond oil painting to encompass ceramics and large-scale works. In recent years, she has developed a distinctive artistic language through materials gathered from various landscapes—including minerals, coral, soil, ceramic fragments, charcoal, fruits, and plaster—which she crushes into fine particles or burns into ash. Through these processes, her works embody both the cyclical nature of life and the memories embedded within the earth itself.

The title of this exhibition, “Fulcrum,” refers to a point of support or balance.

In ancient times, it was elemental technologies—the most fundamental means of sustaining life—that strengthened the bond between humanity and all things in the universe. They became tools, shelters, and at times sacred vessels through which deities descended into the world. Massive stones protruding from the earth were revered as the “bones of the planet,” their overwhelming presence serving as centers of prayer that opened humanity to the greater cosmos.

Iwama seeks to restore this sensibility to the present day. Conceiving the canvas as a field of encounter, she moves between her own intentions and the unforeseen phenomena brought forth by her materials, layering traces woven by the cycles of life. The landscapes that emerge are not manifestations of the artist’s dominion over the world, but rather events in which the principles of nature and humanity arise together.

The works installed throughout the exhibition space function as “fulcrums” that connect heaven and earth, interior and exterior, the visible and the invisible. Like Stonehenge or the Kaname-ishi—the sacred “keystone” believed to stabilize the land—they maintain the equilibrium of the space and transform the exhibition itself into a site of quiet prayer.

Through the experience of moving through the entire exhibition as a single installation, visitors are invited to unravel the traces left by our predecessors, who lived in sincere relationship with the myriad phenomena of the world. In doing so, the exhibition may awaken within us a primordial and open form of silent prayer—one that has long lain dormant within human nature.

Until two years ago, Iwama’s works emerged from her dialogue with the world she had contemplated since childhood, embodying her sensations and impulses directly upon the pictorial surface. Through years of exhibitions and artistic practice, she arrived at a turning point. Beyond a profound sense of creative exhaustion, she found herself asking, “What is it that I truly wish to express on this planet?” From that moment onward, her consciousness began to shift—from the inner self toward the Earth itself.

If the first chapter of her practice, “Self,” was a journey inward to explore and depict her inner universe, then the current second chapter, “Earth,” marks a dialogue with the wisdom of this world through artistic expression, with the canvas serving as a primordial apparatus of prayer.

In retrospect, “Fulcrum” may come to be understood as the present embodiment of this second chapter in Yuki Iwama’s artistic journey.

Curator: Koharu Kawakatsu