어쩔 수 없는 사진...이라는 경우가 있다. 결국 취향에관한 문제로 귀결되겠지만, 아마도....영원히 내가 리처드 미즈락 같은 류를 싫어할 수 없다.......는 이야기이다. 빛과 톤을 콘트롤하는 것이, 내용의 전부인 사진을 왜 그렇게 싸고 도냐고 날 비난한 놈도 있었지만, 내 대답은 결국 내 똥이 굵다는 결론이었다. 하긴, 결국 내 삶은 모순의 영원한 순환인지도 모른다.
그러면서, 제일 싫어하는 작가는 또 안셀 아담스이니.
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Biwa Lake Tree, Study 2, Omi, Honshu, Japan, 2002
Nine Birds, Izumo Taisha, Honshu, Japan, 2001
Chikiu Cape Trees, Muroran, Hokkaido, Japan, 2002
Ogawara Lake Trees, Misawa, Honshu, Japan, 2002
Torii, Takashima, Honshu, Japan, 2002
Sticks in Water, Shinji Lake, Honshu, Japan, 2001
The dusky, spiritual world of monochrome realized by light and shade.
"Japan" is the latest collection of the new works by young maestro Michael Kenna, for which he left his footprints all over the country for two years. Japanese sceneries that were crystallized by clicking the shutter of his beloved Hasselblad, are serene and fantastic enough to allow us to escape from the din and bustle of everyday life.
The warmth added to his 6x6 format is the mixture of his unique techniques of air perspective and long time exposure to emphasize the rough particles of the light, his prominent printing skills and his certain yet tender aesthetic sense. The rich harmony in his artworks is beyond the range of sheer expression; his world printed into mystical monochrome makes us seek for our eternally lost imaginable sceneries, inviting us to the trip to old memories.
Born in the UK, moved to San Francisco, USA choosing the city as his base, Kenna has been energetically producing and releasing his artworks that are mainly landscapes, all over the world. It was a Japanese book that attracted Kenna and eventually brought him to the country in the Far East. It was In'ei Raisan (In Praise of Shadows) written by Japanese novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki who especially about wrote aesthetics and classic, traditional beauty of Japan. The book talks about aesthetics of light and shade in Japanese houses. The writers says, "Beauty does not exist in objects but in the contrast between light and shade, in the twill made by object against object." That means you should not light up objects themselves but use the effect of light and shade indirectly in order to bring out the beauty of objects.
Kenna admits that this book has influenced him; this approach has been taken into practice to sublimation and realization in the works shown here. You cannot help but feel divinity in his works; images of islands, trees, and statues of Buddha lit by dusky light, in the delicate and rich contrast achieved by various angles. He also fancies another form of Japanese art, haiku. He loves Oku no Hosomich, (Narrow Road to the North) written by Japanese haiku poet Basho Matsuo, Japan's wandering minstrel, the ultimate vagabond. Haiku is a form of poem consisting of seventeen syllables (divided into three lines, basically in five, seven and five syllables). Poem that is written what the poet felt at heart on the spot. Basho condensed and recreated his thoughts into seventeen syllables on the people he met and incidents he encountered on the road traveling all over Japan. His act was the same as Kenna's; taking pictures of the impressive people and things he saw on the road walking all over Japan.
In the real world flooded with noises, Kenna excludes noises and recreates sceneries full of poesy. Isn't he an expressionist with spirituality who is more Japanese than a Japanese?
All images these pages © Michael Kenna
by Yuko Tanaka
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