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“I am inspired by old Japanese Myths. I try to conjure up scenes from Japanese Mythology in the lives of real characters in contemporary Japanese society.”
Kaori Yuzawa
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“Everything can be a Myth provided it is conveyed by a Discourse. Myth is not defined by the object of its message but by the way in
which it utters its message. Myth is a story at once true and yet unreal.”
Roland Barthes Mythologies
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After the Fog a collection of digital photographs from Kaori Yuzawa provide us with a unique insight into how key concepts in traditional Japanese Aesthetics can be found in the work of a young contemporary photographer.
In Japan there is an intense preoccupation with the concept of ‘Nihonjinron’: the nature of the Japanese person or character. This concept differs substantially from western ideas relating to the individual psychological profile of a character, and instead emphasizes an individual’s position in a much broader cultural and historical time-span.
Kaori’s images invest each subject with a timeless mythical signification—she reaches beyond the specificities of individual stories. Rather than demystify her subjects with a narrative, she instead creates a personal mythology for them constructing a scene in which their ‘truth’ is ultimately impenetrable and irreducible and therefore rendered poetic.
Within Japanese culture there is a reticence about asserting one’s individuality, a tendancy to blend in with one’s surroundings. This gives rise in Kaori’s work to a similar ‘still life’ effect one often sees in Japanese cinema introduced here into portraiture. This aesthetic also has its origin in the Japanese concept of ‘Wabi-Sabi’ which suggests beauty found in quiet authority and a state of watchful observance.
Kaori’s project seems close to what in Greek thought is called Anagnorisis: the recognition of someone not only as a person but also in terms of what they stand for in their world.
Her images are intentionally enigmatic, not in the Western sense suggesting psychological mystery, but rather in the sense of creating an abstracted personal mythology for each character: an ideogram of their lives.
Kaori Yuzawa was born in 1971 in Tokyo and continues to reside there. She studied photography and experimental film at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Ard Bia is delighted to present After the Fog by Kaori Yuzawa in conjunction with the Galway Arts Festival and as part of its ongoing curatorial collaboration with International artists.
view artist page
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Ardbia Gallery,
4 William Street West, Galway, Ireland.
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t : 00353 87 2368648 / 00353 91 516630
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w: www.ardbia.com
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gallery opening hours:
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