Cui Cui

by Rinko Kawauchi (Photographer)

Rinko Kawauchi aime saisir les détails du quotidien qui échappent souvent au passant trop pressé. Vus à travers l'oeil aiguisé de l'artiste, ces objets et ces situations ordinaires prennent un tout autre caractère qui fait surgir la beauté, la poésie et l'émotion.

Genres: Photography, Art, Japan

232 pages, Softcover

First published March 9, 2005

About the author

Rinko Kawauchi is a contemporary Japanese photographer known for her lyrical images of elemental subjects. Based in the Shinto religion as well as the works of Irving Penn, Kawauchi’s photographs capture ordinary moments with a profound almost hallucinatory perspective. “From the black ocean comes the appearance of light and waves. It helps you imagine birth,” she has mused. “I want imagination in the photographs I take. It’s like a prologue. You wonder, ‘What’s going on?’ You feel something is going to happen.”

Born on April 6, 1972 in Shiga Prefecture, Japan, she began pursuing photography while attending the Seian College of Art and Design in Osaka during the early 1990s. Working mainly in advertising for a number of years after graduating, Kawauchi published her first photo book in 2001 and went on to release several others, including Illuminance (2011), Ametsuchi (2013), and Halo (2017). She currently lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. Today, Kawauchi’s works are held in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Huis Marseille in Amsterdam, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, among others.

Reviews

[yengyeng · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kawauchi-san's personal album of her life in the inaka is full of achingly tender moments of family members showing kindness and care to one another, quiet resolute dignity in the face of sickness and death and the joy of celebrating births, weddings and changes in seasons. I like the glimpses of everyday life, like the family lounging around the kotatsu and watching telly and the chirashi don they ate!

[lex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intimate and moving work by Kawauchi on her family. She captures the passing of time so well.

[Elizabeth H.]

absolutely beautiful.