A Private History
Mikiko Hara, Ryudai Takano, Masanori Ikeda, Kumi Oguro / Japan
—
The photographers Mikiko Hara, Ryudai Takano, Masanori Ikeda and Kumi Oguro have each in their own way created significant and personal bodies of work by focusing on things that are close to their own heart, be it memory, passion, everyday things or the personal story - the individual state of mind is portrayed and we sense the here and now of contemporary Japanese life.
Mikiko Haras photographs are essences of the frustrations and beauty of the everyday. An old Rolleiflex hangs habitually around her neck, almost a bodily extension. She photographs that which captures her eye. An unknown woman's introverted glance on a rush hour Tokyo train, a young couple on a bench, or the light falling on her daughters kimono. From these photographs she composes scenarios that combine portraits of the city's inhabitants with descriptions from her own life as a mother of three living in a Tokyo suburb.
Masanori Ikeda. We see a girl in a room dressed in a kimono, sitting composed in front of a bookshelf. On the shelves are neatly arranged loves of bread. The scene is obscure and surrealistic. Masanori Ikeda's father was a studio photographer and he grew up having close contact with conventional studio photography. With the series ' A Photo studio of a Holiday' Ideka uses the photo studios conventions in a new way and creates a funny and distorted scenario in which both the character of humans and objects are revealed and staged.
Kumi Oguro creates photographs that makes the viewer think of that which is beyond what is visible. A fragment of a persons body is shown - a lock of hair, hands that almost meet or feet dragging themselves across a floor. At the same time an event is suggested - a before and after that never is revealed. The staged photographs are organic and sensuous, emotionally revealing though clouded in mystery.
Takano Ryudai always meets his male nude models through his friends and photographs them in his own home. He exposes their self-stagedness as well as his own desire with an open and honest sensibility. At the same time the distance between photographer and the models, who pose in an almost feminine beauty, is apparent and is that which supports and completes the scene. We sense the meeting that took place beforehand, and a shyness slowly broken down.