Interviews From Yale Radio / Artists, Curators And More

Naomi Okubo’s work explores delicate and often uneasy relationships between individuals, society, and the spaces that shape them. Drawing on her personal experiences, particularly her complex relationship with her mother, she examines how guise, decoration, and inherited roles—especially restrictive notions of “femininity”—affect human interactions. In her early work, Okubo depicted women without faces as a symbol of the pressures to conform in Japanese society. Over time, these faceless figures have come to function more broadly as a mirror, allowing viewers to project themselves and reflecting both individual experiences and societal dynamics. In recent years, she has also been exploring the motif of the “greenhouse/home,” a confined yet seemingly nurturing space that resonates with her upbringing and contemporary life, highlighting how environments can both protect and constrain. Her works involve a complex, multi-layered process, where materials and techniques accumulate to convey the depth and contradict