MAYUKA YAMAMOTO - Red Bear Boy 2021

Red Bear Boy 2021

Artist: Mayuka Yamamoto
Title: Red Bear Boy
Year: 2021
Medium: Screenprint in colours
Image Size: 60.8 × 40.6 cm (23 7/8 × 16 in)
Sheet Size: 66.0 × 46.0 cm (26 × 18 1/8 in)
Edition: 75 — signed, titled and numbered
Signature: Signed on the print and on the certificate
Certificate: Certificate of Authenticity issued by Corey Helford Gallery
Type: Limited edition screenprin

Description:

Red Bear Boy (2021) is one of the most quietly arresting works from Mayuka Yamamoto — the Japanese artist whose large-eyed, solemn children, rendered in a palette of soft but saturated colour, have built a devoted international collector base at the intersection of contemporary Japanese figurative painting, kawaii aesthetics, and the darker psychological currents that run beneath them.

A child stands at the centre of the composition, dressed in a full red bear costume — the bear's sleeping face resting above the child's own, the costume hood framing a pair of large, green-eyed, wholly unsmiling features. The expression is Yamamoto's signature: not sad, not angry, not afraid — but absolutely, profoundly serious. The child looks out with the directness of someone who has not yet learned to perform happiness for an audience, whose emotional life has not yet been disciplined into social acceptability. It is a gaze that adults find simultaneously disarming and faintly unsettling, recognising in it something they have been trained to suppress.

The bear costume is the work's central formal and conceptual element. The bear is a universal symbol of childhood comfort and protection — and yet this bear sleeps, its eyes closed, its face passive, while the child inside it remains wide awake and watchful. The costume that should protect has become simply another layer of self, another identity worn without explanation. The red — warm, slightly aggressive, the colour of the costume and the colour of the child within it — gives the image a chromatic unity and a visual force that belies the apparent simplicity of the composition.

Produced as a screenprint in colours in an edition of 75, signed, titled, and numbered on the print and signed on the certificate of authenticity issued by Corey Helford Gallery — one of Los Angeles's leading galleries for contemporary lowbrow and pop surrealist art, and Yamamoto's primary gallery representative.

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FAQ 

Is this an original Mayuka Yamamoto print?
Yes — an original screenprint in colours, signed, titled and numbered on the print, with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and issued by Corey Helford Gallery.

What is the edition size?
75 impressions.

Who is Corey Helford Gallery?
Corey Helford Gallery is one of Los Angeles's leading contemporary galleries specialising in lowbrow, pop surrealist, and Japanese contemporary art — Mayuka Yamamoto's primary gallery representative and the issuing body for this certificate of authenticity.

Who is Mayuka Yamamoto?
Mayuka Yamamoto (b. 1981) is a Japanese painter and printmaker known for her solemn, large-eyed child figures rendered in soft, saturated palettes. Her work has attracted a significant international collector base and is exhibited by leading galleries across the United States, Japan, and Europe.

Is a certificate of authenticity included?
Yes — issued by Corey Helford Gallery and signed by the artist.

Do you ship internationally?
Yes — worldwide, with museum-grade packaging for framed works, full insurance, and shipment tracking.