Rinko Kawauchi Explained

Rinko Kawauchi
HonFRPS
Birth Date:6 April 1972
Birth Place:Shiga, Japan
Nationality:Japanese
Education:Seian University of Art and Design
Known For:Photography

Rinko Kawauchi HonFRPS (川内 倫子, Kawauchi Rinko, born 1972) is a Japanese photographer.[1] [2] [3] Her work is characterized by a serene, poetic style, depicting the ordinary moments in life.[4] [5]

Life and work

Kawauchi became interested in photography while studying graphic design and photography at Seian University of Art and Design where she graduated in 1993.[6] She first worked in commercial photography[6] for an advertising agency for several years before embarking on a career as a fine art photographer. She has mentioned that she continues to work the advertising job.[7] Her background and experience with design have influenced the edits and arrangements of photos in her series. Kawauchi often thinks about new ways to see her photographs, allowing her to continue to find new meaning and significance in her work. There is little known about her personal life and family, but through her photo book Cui Cui she portrays the memories of her family, which she has said to have been shooting for over a decade.[8] The photos in said book captures all the ordinaries and emotions of life, ranging from the happiness of childbirth to the heartbreak of death.

At age 19, she began making prints of her first black-and-white photographs, and it wasn't until five years later that she started printing color photographs. After experimenting with different cameras, she decided to stay with the Rolleiflex, which she still uses.

In 2001, three of her photo books were published: Hanako (a Japanese girl's name), Utatane ("catnap"), and Hanabi ("fireworks"). In the following years she won prizes for two of the books in Japan.[9] In 2004 Kawauchi published Aila; in 2010, Murmuration, and in 2011 Illuminance.

Kawauchi's art is rooted in Shinto, the ethnic religion of the people of Japan.[9] According to Shinto, all things on earth have a spirit, hence no subject is too small or mundane for Kawauchi's work; she also photographs "small events glimpsed in passing,"[10] conveying a sense of the transient. Kawauchi sees her images as parts of series that allow the viewer to juxtapose images in the imagination, thereby making the photograph a work of art[11] and allowing a whole to emerge at the end; she likes working in photo books because they allow the viewer to engage intimately with her images. Her photographs are mostly in 6×6 format.[12] However, upon being invited to the Brighton Photo Biennial in 2010, Kawauchi first photographed digitally and began taking photos that were not square.

Kawauchi also composes haiku poems.

She lived for many years in Tokyo and in 2018 moved to the countryside on the outskirts of the city.[13]

Style

Since she began her photographic career, Kawauchi's photographs contained a unique aesthetic and mood, capturing intimate, poetic, and beautiful moments of the world around her. They often have brilliant and radiant light that give them a dream-like quality. The sublimity of her photographs are further enhanced by her use of soft colors as well as her awareness for the beauty in even the most average moments.[14]

There is not one specific theme or concept that Kawauchi chooses to explore with her image creation; rather, she does it spontaneously, observing and reacting to everything that is around her before doing and sort of editing. She focuses on just shooting, photographing everything that attracts her eyes before looking back and thinking about why she was interesting in those subjects. Another subject that she explored in her book, Ametsuchi, was the practice of religious ceremonies and rituals that hinted at an earthly cycle involving the concepts of time and impermanence. In the book, she depicts Japan's Mount Aso, a sacred site for a Shinto ritual called yakihata, and its volcanic landscape.[15] The ritual is a long-standing tradition dating back about 1,300 years in which farmland is burned yearly to maintain its sustainability for new crops as opposed to using chemicals, and the communities at Aso are among the few that continue this tradition. Ironically, witnessing essentially the rebirth of farmland take place, Kawauchi claims that she burned away her old self and was reborn herself.

In her book Halo, she continues to explore that theme with different rituals at other locations. She traveled to Izumo, Japan to witness a ritual that involves the lighting of sacred flames to welcome the gods. She also went to the Hebei province of China to see new year celebrations, including a 500 year old tradition of throwing molten iron at the city walls to make their own fireworks.

Awards

Publications

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Collections

Kawauchi's work is held in the following collections:

See also

Notes

  1. Book: Shearer. Benjamin F.. Shearer. Barbara Smith. Notable women in the life sciences : a biographical dictionary. 1996. Greenwood Press. Westport, Conn. [u.a.]. 0313293023. 440. 1. publ..
  2. Web site: Celebrated Japanese photographers come to London . 2009-05-12. 2010-02-01. British Journal of Photography.
  3. Web site: Interview: RINKO KAWAUCHI - 川内倫子 - Photographer. 2008-04-22. 2010-02-01. www.public-image.org]. ja. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20090108105440/http://www.public-image.org/interview/2008/04/22/rinko-kawauchi.html. 2009-01-08.
  4. News: Joyless, creepy - and sublime. Alastair . Sooke . The Daily Telegraph. 2006-06-06 . https://archive.today/20130505053647/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3652948/Joyless-creepy---and-sublime.html. dead. 2013-05-05. Her intimate imagery is worlds apart from that of her co-exhibitors: a newborn with umbilical cord still attached; a green shoot sprouting from a bulb; and, most startling, a cracked egg containing a fluffy hatchling. You come away from her gentle show refreshed..
  5. News: Sublime to meticulousJapan's young master finds magic in bugs, clouds and trees . Sean . O'Hagan . The Guardian. 2006-05-07 . Rinko Kawauchi's subject is the everyday sublime.
  6. Florian Heine & Brad Finger. Rinko Kawauchi. 50 Contemporary Photographers You Should Know. Munich: Prestel 2016.
  7. News: Risch. Conor. In a moment: with her first collaboration with a U.S. publisher, renowned Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi shares her take on our collective experience. 2011. Photo District News.
  8. Web site: Cui Cui. Rinko Kawauchi. 2020-04-13.
  9. Boris Friedewald. Women Photographers: From Julia Margaret Cameron to Cindy Sherman. Munich - London - New York 2014, S. 108,
  10. Ian Jeffrey. Rinko Kawauchi: Murmuration.Photoworks, 15(Autumn-Winter, 2010), 26-35 https://photoworks.org.uk/project-news/photoworks-issue-15/
  11. Yumi Goto, "Rinko Kawauchi's Illuminance". Time, April 11, 2011.
  12. Web site: 10 questions to Rinko Kawauchi about photography . 2006-08-11. 2011-05-12. pingmag.jp.
  13. Web site: 2020-04-16. Rinko Kawauchi. Rinko Kawauchi on leaving Tokyo for the serenity of the countryside. www.ft.com.
  14. News: O'Hagan. Sean. Halo by Rinko Kawauchi -- images of the everyday sublime; A book celebrating the earth, the heavens and all points between confirms Kawauchi's standing as a singular presence in modern photography. 2017-08-21. The Observer. 2020-04-12.
  15. News: Kawauchi. Rinko. FIELDS OF FIRE; For her latest project the Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi observed the 1,300-year-old tradition of burning farmland, an idea that came to her in a dream. 2020-06-01. Daily Telegraph. 2020-04-12.
  16. Web site: The rain of blessing. Gallery 916. 2020-04-12.
  17. Web site: Honorary Fellowships (HonFRPS). Royal Photographic Society. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20170127135803/http://www.rps.org/about/awards/history-and-recipients/honorary-fellowships. 27 January 2017. 8 March 2017.
  18. "Exhibition of the 29th Higashikawa Award Winners " Accessed 15 April 2020.
  19. The publisher's description of this set: Web site: One Day - Kehrer Verlag. Kehrer Verlag. en. 2018-04-05.
  20. Book: Kawauchi, Rinko. Light and shadow. 2014. Super Labo . 9784905052678. 907485744.
  21. Web site: 2020-10-29. 12 September 2020. Rinko Kawauchi: Toward the light. www.ft.com.
  22. Web site: The Lapis Press. www.lapispress.com.
  23. Web site: London Town.
  24. "Rinko Kawauchi, 5 May - 9 July 2006, The Photographers' Gallery"
  25. Rinko Kawauchi, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo 20 jul-23 set 2007 Web site: Mam :: MUSEU DE ARTE MODERNA DE SÃO PAULO . 2010-02-16 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20101007230855/http://www.mam.org.br/2008/portugues/exposicaoDetalhes.aspx?id=31 . 2010-10-07 .
  26. Strange & Familiar: Three Views of Brighton, Brighton Photo Biennial 2010, Oct 2nd - Nov 14th 2010 Web site: Brighton Photo Biennial 2010 - BPB Curated: Strange & Familiar: Three Views of Brighton . 2011-06-16 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110517233452/http://bpb.org.uk/exhibitions/9148/bpb-curated-strange-familiar-three-views-of-brighton/ . 2011-05-17 .
  27. Web site: Illuminance.
  28. Web site: TRAUMARIS - SPACE - Photo Gallery. traumaris.tumblr.com.
  29. Web site: Emily. Wakeling. 2020-04-15. In the light of Rinko Kawauchi. 14 June 2012. The Japan Times.
  30. Web site: Rinko Kawauchi.
  31. Web site: Traveling exhibition: Rinko Kawauchi, Ametsuchi - Aperture Foundation NY . 2015-05-13 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150427064742/http://www.aperture.org/traveling-exhibitions/rinko-kawauchi-ametsuchi/ . 2015-04-27 .
  32. Web site: RINKO KAWAUCHI, Ametsuchi – PRISKA PASQUER. 6 December 2013.
  33. Web site: The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) on art-report - de. 8 December 2015. www.art-report.com.
  34. Web site: College of Art & Design - Lesley University. www.lesley.edu.
  35. http://colissimo.jp/rizmevent/5630.htm
  36. Web site: Home Page – Kunst Haus Wien. Museum Hundertwasser. www.kunsthauswien.com.
  37. Web site: Halo.
  38. Web site: Autumn 2005. Huis Marseille. 2020-04-12.
  39. Web site: Creatures from the Collection and Other Themes. Huis Marseille. 2020-04-12.
  40. Web site: Summer Loves. Huis Marseille. 2020-04-12.
  41. Web site: In the Wake. 21 January 2015.
  42. Web site: A Beautiful Moment. Huis Marseille. 2020-04-12.
  43. Web site: Rinko Kawauchi. sfmoma. 2020-04-12.
  44. Web site: Results for rinko kawauchi. Huis Marseille. 2020-04-12.
  45. Web site: 2020-04-15. tokyo photographic art museum. tokyo photographic art museum.

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