Nobi (Wildfire)

Nobi (Wildfire) is a recent body of large-scale paintings developed by Ouyoshi Akeyama from 2022 onward. The series takes as one point of departure Akeyama’s memories of forest fires he witnessed during his travels in Siberia. In these works, children are placed quietly within landscapes marked by burning, scorching, or the aftermath of fire.

Physical scale is a significant element of the series: the large canvases bring the figures and scorched landscapes into a direct relationship with the viewer’s body.

Series Note

In these works, wildfire is not treated simply as disaster imagery. Against the force of flame and scorched land, the figures do not respond with dramatic gestures. Instead, they remain within a charged stillness. The gazes of the children, in particular, do not explain the event; they seem to return a question to the viewer.

Recurring fragments of newspaper stand between direct experience and the public language through which events are narrated. In Nobi, catastrophe appears both as something before the viewer and as something already mediated, reported, and read.

Commentary
Misako Yarita, poet and art critic, 2025

I felt a bodily urge to flee from the intensity of the fire pressing forward from the painted surface.

At the same time, I could not resist being drawn toward the strength of the boys’ gazes.

They seemed to ask me, “Is it truly acceptable for you to remain as you are?”

What emerged between the viewer and the boys felt like a connection—perhaps a dialogue with the future.

From a 2022 Interview
Edited for clarity from the original spoken Japanese.

When I traveled in Siberia, I saw wildfires many times. But what one sees does not immediately become a painting.

A scene remains stored in the mind. Later, when the figures begin to appear, it returns and joins with them — and then the painting begins to take form.

It is not simply that the background comes first and the figures later, or that the figures come first and the background later. In some way, they emerge together. This was true when what I saw in North Africa led to the Napping works, and also when the wildfires I saw in Siberia later led to Nobi.

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