sakamoto 
Hama Ayaka surprised me and my fellow jurors when we viewed her submission almost 10 years ago at an open-call exhibition held at the Ginza Vanilla Gallery. She entered a large[MOU1] canvas of high-school girls in uniform, executed with the roughest possible technique. Since then, she has continued to capture the fleeting erotic moments of young women’s day-to-day lives. For an occasional change of pace, she also depicts cute girls at Disneyland. The work on show here, painted in 2018, is very different. The artist offers the following background: The story takes place in 19XX, when a researcher hears of a remote tribe in a certain country whose members “grow flowers instead of pubic hair.” Various clues lead him through the rainforest to the tribe. Gradually, through an exchange of diary entries sent as if by a reality TV show outcast, the researcher gains the tribe’s trust and succeeds in photographing them. This image is a record of one such document.
[MOU1]「百号」は日本独特の絵のサイズをあらわす言葉なので。