RACVYOXO

This painting series, RACVYOXO, is inspired by Nippo-Jisho (the Japanese–Portuguese Dictionary) and Rakuyoshu, books compiled in Japan during the 16th-century trade between Japan and Portugal. The series began during an artist residency in Minamishimabara, Nagasaki, where Portuguese ships once arrived.
Dictionaries record not only the meanings of words but also how people understood the world in their time. This work combines words from these historical dictionaries with photographs of landscapes taken in Minamishimabara, layering them within a single image.
The materials used in the paintings change over time. The photographs gradually fade, while the silver leaf tarnishes and changes color, allowing the dictionary text to become more visible. Through this process, historical records and present memories overlap, and traces of time slowly accumulate within the work.