#16 Naoyuki Ogino

12 January - 12 February 2017

With pleasure IBASHO presents a solo exhibition of the Japanese photographer Naoyuki Ogino. 

 

IBASHO will show works from Ogino's black-and-white series 'Womb of the Myth' from 2010/2011. This series was photographed on the site of the movie studio at Uzumasa Kyoto, Japan, which is one of the last places where the practice of traditional Japanese movie craftsmen remains. The recurrent construction and destruction - birth and delivery - of movie sets in the womb of the studio over a period of 60 years, has become a kind of simulacrum; the atmosphere of the place is filled with the ancient Japanese past, gods and future.

 

Ogino's most recent works created with photography's oldest printing technique, the salt print, on thin Japanese washi paper, can be admired as well. The salt prints on show derive from different series, among others from Ogino's series 'Skin' from 2015. With this series he has tried to visualise not only a feeling of presence of a female body, like a breath felt on their skin, but also a materiality through a rich texture in the print that touches the viewer directly and deeply. His other salt prints reveal the deep relationship Ogino has with the Japanese mystical traditions and religions, his images often airing an evanescent world.

 

Ogino grew up in Tokyo, where he was born in 1975, and in Mexico. He graduated with a degree in physics from Nagoya University, but wanted to pursue his dream of becoming a photographer while working for Japan's largest advertisement agency. In 2006 he decided to focus full-time on his career as an independent photographer. In the same year he received the Grand Prix of the Japan Photographer's Union. He participated in Pingyao International Photography Festival in China in 2007, as well as the Tashkentale Photo Festival in Uzbekistan in 2008 and Taiwan Photo in 2011. Since 1998 he has held several solo and exhibitions in Mexico, the U.S., Taiwan and other countries.