Yûchi Yokoyama

Now considered a comic book genius, Japanese artist Yûichi Yokoyama devotes himself exclusively to neo-manga, a style that can be seen as a radical graphic exploration that allows him to “draw time.” Discovered in the 2000s thanks to a few iconoclastic albums in which the drawings expand the narrative, this secretive author focuses on describing micro-events such as a train journey or the travels of explorers in a land devoid of human presence. Transcending the popular comic book genre, Yokoyama produces timeless stories that border on abstraction. The strange rubs shoulders with the unusual, and his attack on a mechanized world is an ode to life. Regularly exhibited in major Japanese and Anglo-Saxon museums, as well as at the Palais de Tokyo (2018), his drawings closed the vast exhibition “Comic Books, 1964–2024” presented at Beaubourg this year.

Following this exhibition, Galerie 8 + 4, in association with Éditions Matière, has the immense privilege of presenting a vast collection of his preparatory drawings. His sober lines find in these graphic essays an energy that is all the more surprising as it appears on various types of paper (wrapping paper, drafts, advertisements) where he plays with the printed characters to refine his compositions and storyboards. Sometimes enhanced with color or collages, his pencil drawings crystallize in a single form the pop effervescence of our contemporary cultures and the singularity of an author seeking purity in his stories.

Œuvres présentées par la galerie / Works presented by the gallery :

1- PLAZA 011, 2006
Pencil and felt-tip pen on paper
36 × 26 cm

2- PLAZA 052, 2006
Pencil and felt-tip pen on paper
36 × 26 cm

3- VOYAGE 65, 2006
Pencil and felt-tip pen on paper
36 × 26 cm

4- VOYAGE 006, 2006
Pencil and felt-tip pen on paper
36 × 26 cm

5- JARDIN 002, 2006
Pencil and felt-tip pen on paper
36 × 26 cm

6- BABY BOOM 060, 2006
Pencil and felt-tip pen on paper
36 × 26 cm

7- BABY BOOM 077, 2006 
Pencil and felt-tip pen on paper
36 × 26 cm

8- BABY BOOM 019, 2006 
Pencil and felt-tip pen on paper
36 × 26 cm