Layla Yamamoto Relates Feminism and Japanese Anime

By Sophie Mayuko Arni
Published on January 16, 2024

Layla Yamamoto is a painter and multimedia artist based in Tokyo, who I interviewed last year after seeing her paintings at multiple art fairs and exhibitions throughout Japan. Her intricate flower-meets-anime paintings struck me as relating anime culture with a social awareness of women’s place in a patriarchal Japanese society.

Having attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Yamamoto shifts smoothly between Western discourse and her brilliant technical painting skills – she was trained in traditional Nihonga painting. In the following conversation, we cover the impact of anime and manga in Japanese visual arts, and her views on Tokyo’s art scene.

^{The following conversation took place in Tokyo in July 2023.}

1. Layla Yamamoto, I Hate Flowers 1, 2021. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery.

Sophie Arni: Let’s first start with your beginnings as a painter. Why did you decide to study art in the United States? I know that it happens sometimes but it is not so common, so I was wondering if you could tell us about this choice and about your studies.

Layla Yamamoto: I first majored in Nihonga traditional Japanese painting - when I was in high school and I did not like it because the style was too conservative. I wanted to study other forms of Japanese art like ukiyo-e and ink wash painting, the very old styles. I’m Japanese but I didn't know much about Japanese art. I realized however that these practices completely vanished from our education system.

That kind of education disappeared centuries ago. After the Meiji period, painting was either in tune with French Academy styles or Nihonga style combined with the use of pigments. I couldn't study other forms of Japanese art in Japan.

I was also reading a lot of books written by [Takashi] Murakami and [Makoto] Aida and other contemporary artists in Japan and they always mentioned the deficiencies of Japanese art education. If students want to learn true fine art education, they would need to go to the United States or Europe.

I then found out about governmental program that high school students in Tokyo can apply to to study abroad in the US, Australia or New Zealand. I joined the program, and with governmental support, students did not have to pay much. I went to the US when I was a sophomore in high school for almost one month. I went to the East Coast, Boston, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC, and then came back to Japan. Then I studied abroad again for one year, and I ended up in a conservative Christian community school with no art classes. That was a very difficult period. Thankfully I had the opportunity to attend the National Portfolio Day organized by the Virginia Commonwealth University, where I met a lot of people from art schools and colleges in the US. They told me that I could get a scholarship at SAIC [School of the Art Institute of Chicago]. My portfolio was good enough to get into the college and they supported me for my application.

2. Layla Yamamoto, Who Said it Was Simple? Solo exhibition at Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery, Tokyo. 2022. Installation view. Courtesy of the artist and Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery.

S.A.: That is such a great story and it was very courageous of you – I know how tough it is to be immersed in another culture at a young age, especially surrounded by people who do not share your worldview. You start to question and doubt yourself at every step of the way.

L.Y.: The governmental program had many high school students, but we were sent one by one to every school. So I was completely alone, and high schools in the US were a big cultural shock coming straight from Japan. It was a very tough time for me, also as I didn’t speak English well at a time. There were many barriers.

S.A.: I think what you said is super interesting, about reading books by Murakami or Aida and finding out their views on Japanese art education. I guess I can understand, but also on the other side, in the US, people complain that they don't learn technique as much. Art education can be focused solely on conceptual and theoretical ideas. Looking back at your experiences, what do you think about this? Is the US system actually better than the Japanese?

L.Y.: In Japan, students can only learn techniques and we don't have any chance to learn art history or theory: how to build a concept and visualize it. In general, artists in Japan have a hard time at conveying what they think. It’s more about creation and do not really know what they make and I think that’s the issue.

The US education system has a lot of problems but artists know what they make. I felt blown away by other students’ ability to express their ideas and concepts.

In Japan, students majoring in painting only learn painting, and sculpture majors only learn sculpture, they don't know how to combine those different mediums together. Conversely, art colleges like SAIC have many programs where students can learn and combine a lot of different mediums or other practices. We write and we think about concepts. We write about art history so we learn how to use what we learn to express what we think. At the end, I thought the US education was much better.

S.A: So you did your BFA and MFA in Chicago?

L.Y.: I actually couldn't graduate because I had serious family issues, I had to come back to Japan in my sophomore year. I took some online classes at SAIC after coming back, and I also traveled to Miami and Hong Kong for art fairs and exhibitions.

S.A.: So your painting technique is more self-taught.

L.Y.: My friends in SAIC helped me a lot. Since I couldn't go back, they shared information and resources they would learn at school. Even though we were apart, we called almost every day.

S.A.: That was before all the Zoom calls and pandemic, right? Then you started to show in Chicago and in group shows in New York and Berlin. What kind of work were you making at that time, around 2016?

L.Y.: It was completely different from what I do right now. I was making artworks reflecting my emotions. I used ballpoint pens and acrylic paints a lot and I look at my past work as surrealistic. They look like illustration works, and different from what I make right now.

I used to draw a lot of babies' faces, representing my own inner self. I was making those kinds of works till joining a group show in Berlin. I started to change and I needed to rethink more about what I actually wanted to say. I didn't think much about the concept because I was making it in the way that I learned about art in Japan. In my mind, there is always that process whereas in the US people do not do it that way. After I understanding that, I felt that maybe I could have changed how I make my art, so it was completely different.

3. Layla Yamamoto, After the Quake, 2021. Installation view. Mitsukoshimae Fukushima Building, Tokyo, Japan. Courtesy of the artist. Below: Layla Yamamoto, Therefore I want it (Postwar is over), 2019. Acrylic on canvas. Layla Yamamoto, A girl in Los Alamos, 2019. Acrylic on canvas. Images courtesy of the artist.

S.A.: I guess your main themes include the representation of Japan in the Western world but also feminism, did you already have these things at that point or were you just starting to conceptualize those?

L.Y.: I was thinking to make artworks reflecting on nuclear power and tensions between the US and Japan. My mother’s relatives are all from Hiroshima, so I have a lot of relatives who can share with me their nuclear survivor history. I was told those family histories by my relatives and my mother. At the American high school I went to, teachers in history class told me that dropping atomic bombs to Japanese cities saved millions of lives. I had such a big struggle in my mind because actual survivors were my own relatives. To the Americans, the atomic bomb represented justice, ending World War II and destroying enemies. I started to think how I can express that complicated relation with nuclear power. I experimented a lot smoothing and visualizing my concept but it didn't work well in SAIC. After coming back to Japan I actually focused more on creating those kinds of works.

S.A.: It's a very complicated question because of your personal experiences – but what do you think of the relationship between Japan and the US? Especially in the art world, as you were mentioning people like Murakami, who have this theory of the Big Brother and the small child. He wrote that after the atomic bomb Japan felt like a small child, always looking up to America, and that this reflects into the art world with Japanese artists feeling somewhat ‘small’ compared to US artists. What do you think about this theory?

L.Y.: I think that it is partially true and partially not. Japan really wanted to be an “adult” before WWII and before our defeat, we were an imperial country. We invaded Asian countries and colonized them and during that time we were a “mature country” with an “enlightened” culture from the westernized and modernized perspective with colonial power. After the defeat, Japan went under US control. We became economically successful under the US, so I feel like – or maybe Japanese men think – that we don't have to be mature anymore. The US control was actually beneficial to Japan in some sense. We already are economically successful, and politically stable, so there is no real need to think about real freedom, or think critically about the past. In that sense, we became sort of “child” of the U.S. But I do feel that this view of the past is quite male-centric and male-dominated.

4. Layla Yamamoto, Who Said it Was Simple? Solo exhibition at Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery, Tokyo. 2022. Installation view. Courtesy of the artist and Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery.

S.A.: When looking at your recent series of works you exhibited at Who said it was simple? – your last solo exhibition at Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery in Tokyo, Japan – I can feel a strong sense of feminism. Could you expand on your views of women and the female role in Japanese society?

L.Y.: Before WWII, Japanese women didn’t have much right to own properties, to do what they wanted, they didn’t have the right to vote. They were objectified for patriarchal society.

After the defeat, Japanese women gained equalrights. This idea of gender equality emerged. To that perspective, the end of imperialism was a good thing. It released women from patriarchal rules in Japan as well as freeing the people of Japan's former colonies.

S.A.: In some sense, Japanese women are still objectified today, in contemporary society.

L.Y.: Yes, men still have power. Often in the workplace, women are still considered as “volunteers”, or unpaid workers, there to assist men. Patriarchal system is deeply engrained in our society, you could even say that it is a considered a symbol of Japanese culture.

5. Layla Yamamoto, Flawless 4, 2021. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery.

S.A.: In your recent paintings, you mix anime imagery with words – one painting reads “We teach girls to make themselves smaller”. Where do these sentences come from?

L.Y.: Those words are from Beyonce’s song Flawless. The original quote is from Adichie, a Nigerian writer who became famous after her TED Talk titled “We should all be feminists.” Society teaches girls they have to see each other as enemies and make themselves smaller.

I put these suppressive words next to half-anime, half-realistic faces of young girls because they really resonated together. Girls in Japan grow up on anime, in this fantastical world that promises us that we can be anything we want when we grow up. We can transform ourselves into any being or creature – there is a lot of escapism and freedom in anime actually.

When we think about the common advertisements we see on the subway, such as makeup ads with pretty women, smiling, telling us that “we have to be beautiful”, “we have to be pretty”, “white teeth, big eyes, smooth skin” – I see those as limited. That narrative is completely different from the self-actualization and adventures we learn from anime. Sailor Moon, for example, taught us that girls can be powerful, that they can be strong.

6. Layla Yamamoto, Who said it was simple 1, 2022. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery.

S.A.: I was struck by a large pink painting Who said it was simple? with images of flowers in the background.

L.Y.: That work is about how true sisterhood can be created and maintained. The anime figures are very peaceful, they represent harmless friendship, and their faces look the same and stare at each other intimately. Anime is very idealistic. Next to them, I painted grotesque realistic faces, who look different from one another. While two women are different, and their scars and struggles may differ. The fight in the struggle represents true sisterhood, to recall Audrey Road’s Sister Outsider essay.

In the feminist movement, there are a lot of fights amongst female groups. Often, women themselves tend to forget how different we all are: divided by social class, skin color, cultures. Only a few women have power, and I think it is their responsibility to shine light on women in minority groups. We actually need to appreciate our differences, as much as we appreciate our sameness.

7. Layla Yamamoto, I Hate Flowers 6, 2021. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery.
S.A.: You also told me earlier that your background is inspired from Georgia O’Keeffe’s flower painting, as an ode to a great female artist.

L.Y.: Yes, I titled these series of paintings I Hate Flowers series after a famous quote by Georgia O’Keeffe. She hated flowers, but she painted them over and over again.

S.A.: What do you think about your collectors, in light of the male-dominated art market?

L.Y.: I put a lot of references to feminism in my work, from Beyonce to words from a Nigerian activist – I’m not sure to which extent collectors understand all these references.

I would say, even if my work is collected by a collector who has no other feminist work in their collection – even if they misunderstand my work, it’s still a great thing if they hang my painting in their house. This is the power of art. My work can exist in private spaces that I would not otherwise go to. I can get to private homes and leave a feminist message. Even if they don’t understand it, they will live with a feminist work, which is already a small change.

There are a few female collectors in the Japanese art market, but I do wish we could see more of them.

8. Layla Yamamoto, Flawless 1, 2021. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery.

S.A.: I’d like to ask how you feel about the Tokyo contemporary art scene, and your views on the gallery scene and opportunities for young artists to exhibit their works.

L.Y.: It’s pretty tough, as the Japanese art scene doesn’t fully accept feminism and queerness. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of feminist artists in Japan, but there is not much written history about feminist art.

Young contemporary artists want to learn about previous artists, but without written documentation, it makes for a lack of support for feminist artists. It doesn’t help that many institutional museum curators are male, and for the most part, don’t pick up openly-feminist artists.

Museums have group shows about feminist art, but my feeling is that they’re often about apolitical feminism. I’ve seen many women artists exhibitions in the recent years all over Japan, but the central concept is not necessarily feminist. There is also an issue with showing female nudity, painted by a female artist, in public – a lot of venues won’t accept that. I feel like it’s still inappropriate for women artists to show this kind of works in public.

S.A.: How about showing works outside Japan? Did you find it easier to show these paintings in art fairs you’ve participated in, for example? Sometimes that commercial glaze can be an equilibrium.

L.Y.: In broad general terms, the Western art scene welcomes feminist works. It’s more common to see women artists deal with this kind of work, so it’s easier to show them. It’s not that strange from the public’s point of view.

I’m showing my I Hate Flowers paintings in Boston right now, a gallery invited me for a group show.

5. Layla Yamamoto, I Hate Flowers 5, 2021. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Ritsuki Fujisaki Gallery.

S.A.: Have you considered exploring other mediums, other than painting, in your work?

L.Y.: In the future, I’d like to push more mediums. I’m not great at using new technology, but I’ve been experimenting with new media works. The quality is not yet at the stage I can show these in public, but I hope to keep working on them. I also want to make more sculptural works.

In general, I do love painting. I think it’s still a very powerful medium in today’s digital age. Paintings are easily bought, sold, and traded. Collectors can hang them in their private homes, making painting a more private medium in some sense. A painting is a more private object than a public installation, and I’d like to explore that element of privacy further.

A painting exists in the unique relationship between viewer and object. Installations, video, and sculptures are more public-facing, aimed a large audience.

^{Layla Yamamoto (b. 1995) is a contemporary artist born and based in Tokyo and has enrolled in School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015. She was granted Distinguished Merit Scholarship and Art Bash recommendation in SAIC.}

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Layla Yamamoto Relates Feminism and Japanese Anime

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