We are pleased to announce that we are going to hold the solo show of Kunie Sugiura, <color works>.
Kunie Sugiura was born in Japan in 1942. She went to the U.S. from Japan in 1963 to study photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, before moving to New York in 1968.
Her works has been purchased by MOMA, and coverd by the media including "Art in America" and "New York Times".

Sugiura has made photograms, photographic images that are made without using cameras. Subjects are placed directly on photographic paper, which is then exposed and processed.
Sugiura showed the photograms through the shadows of arranged flowers or small moving animals. When living creatures were used, the actual movement of the subject became fixed as a form. The element of time has been added to photogram that represented only static images till then. Since 1999, she has been working on life-sized human images.
She made the shadow photograms of artists such as Jasper Jones, Ushio Shinohara, and Yayoi Kusama.Those works are titled "The Artist Papers". In her shadow works, she identify the artists with their name as the titles.
She has also collaborated with genetic researchers, and made "The Scientist Papers".
Seizing upon the artists's spontaneous gesture, performance and prop, she thinks she can reduce them to shadows and hope the audiences will call to mind their works and styles.
In Japan, there is a proverb "speak of someone and his shadow appears". As this phrase suggests, shadows do hint at specific persons,in a discreet way.
In a fashonably up-to-date Zen way, these works are "portraits of mu(nothing)",

In the upcoming exhibition <color works>, she will exhibit the color photographs, which applied photogram; the main part is the color.
The color is not the unique color of the photographic subject, but it emits light clearly and shows splendid spark.
For the exhibition comment, Sugiura quoted the words of the scientist below.

"A DNA structure is beautiful, because it is just so simple.Simple enables us to make more communication.
---James D.Watson--The one of scientists who found DNA structure in 1953

Right now, all the living organisms in this world, such as amoeba and cats and human, are continuing their lives for 300 million years. "---Dr.Gunther Blobel---Nobel Prize Winner, The scientist

The naturalness of the object that cannot be easily apprehended attracts Sugiura. And after seeking the shape, time, texture, her interests goes to "color". Sugiura's comment on the exhibition continues.
"The photography attracts us because it has not only three-dimentional qualities such as the shape, color, texture, but also four-dimentional quality, time.The moment which you take the photograph becomes eternal memory, picking up moments that are not going to come back, with surrounding situation changing completely. This <color work> is color photographs taken first in 40 years, and it changed from shadow of the light to color of the light. Although color is perceived from everyone, unlike languages, color has had complex effects differently depending on generations, countries, and religions."(The comment by artist)
We wish you will enjoy her exprimental color photograms.


 <cosmos falls> 2006 98x74cm type C print
 


chips(corner)
(corner)p
30.5 x 27.5 cm

     
 

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