Artist Blog Post - Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi's photos have a quiet urgency. The work is intimate and sublime, I love that she says she's interested in things that have a short life-span: insects, flowers, clouds, children & elderly faces... It's extremely romantic, and I know that the washed out color palate got huge and now seems cliché, but I'm still drawn to it. She's showing continuously & internationally, just wrapping up a show in Brussels (at the time of this writing). She has a sense of really believing in her work, and following her heart with it. Being personally and deeply invested in her subject. While I'm working through determining my perceived value of art, weighing personal expression vs. political/activist work that seems to have more worth because it "makes a difference", Kawauchi's work is refreshing is detailing the beauty and emotion in every day life. Viewing her work is a quiet and positive experience, with many commenting that her work is "refreshing". While it seems that much of the work I've seen lately is a response to tragedy, repression; or springs from cynicism, I'd like my work to be refreshing.

Rinko Kawauchi was born in 1972 in Shiga, Japan. She discovered photography whilst studying at Seian Junior College of Art and Design. Kawauchi gained international acclaim in 2001 with the simultaneous release of three photography books with Little More publishing : Utatane (catnap), Hanabi (fireworks) and Hanako, for which she was awarded with the 27th Ihei Kimura photography award. In a matter of a few years she published another three significant books : Aila (2004) with Little More publishing; Cui Cui (2005) and The Eyes, The Ears (2005) with Foil Publishing.

‘I want imagination in the photographs,’ she once remarked. ‘A photograph is like a prologue. You wonder, “What's going on?” You feel something is going to happen.’
- Rinko Kawauchi, in interview Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, Sunday 7 May 2006

“It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.”
- Max Webber, 1864 - 1920, German sociologist and political economist

Link to an interview with the artist or a review

Link to gallery representing artist

Link to artist website (Link to Foil Gallery's website, which seems the be the most current, comprehensive online presence for the artist.