Born in Onomichi in 1966 and based in Kanazawa, Motoi Yamamoto is a Japanese artist whose practice spans installation, painting, and drawing. For over thirty years, Yamamoto has developed a practice that uses salt as its central medium, beginning after the loss of his younger sister and evolving into intricate labyrinths and patterns that serve as acts of remembrance and reflections on time. These ephemeral works, meticulously poured grain by grain, have been exhibited internationally at institutions such as MoMA PS1 in New York, the Hermitage State Museum in St. Petersburg, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and the Setouchi Triennale. In the United States, his traveling exhibition Return to the Sea: Saltworks introduced audiences to the ritualistic creation and dismantling of his installations, where the salt is ceremonially returned to the ocean.