Shigeki Yoshida Identical Light

Opening reception : 6.18 (Wed) 18:00-20:00
Event: 6.21(sat) 14:00-
Michiko Kasahara (Chief curator of Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography) x Shigeki Yoshida

Tokyo Gallery + BTAP is pleased to announce it is holding Identical Light, a solo exhibition by Shigeki Yoshida. For this, his first exhibition at Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, Yoshida will be displaying 31 black and white prints that take light as their theme. We will be holding a reception party for the artist on the first day of the exhibition, and on June 21 (Sat), from 14:00, there will be a talk given by Michiko Kasahara, Chief Curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Shigeki Yoshida was born in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1963. Following his graduation from Wako University in 1987, he produced prints and paintings, but after being sent to New York as an artist research fellow for the Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs in 1997, he relocated there. Taking a photography course while studying at Hunter College proved to be the impetus for him to start working in that medium.

Yoshida continues to live in New York, and since 2000 he has been working on the "Identical Light" series, which he was motivated to create "so as to reveal the things that we don't normally see." Light is an inherently immaterial phenomenon, and we are first made aware of it through its reflection off other things. Yohida's works capture the light that reflects off the everyday surroundings in his life in New York, the buildings and streets; he takes his photographs in the hope that the light portrayed in these images will evoke memories in the viewer and leave a lasting impression in their heart.

Yoshida works in black and white. "Many think of black and white photography as an exhausted medium. But I would say that it is the fundamental medium that deals with light, which is so frail, and subject to the vagaries of change that one can never recapture the identical light" he says. "I am attracted to black and white photography because it enables me to see the existence of an unassuming but inspiring light that surrounds my life. Photography is for me a process of recognizing something imperceptible but also something precious."

Even though his work consists of straightforward photographs of light as it falls on certain locations, without any alterations to the setting or manipulations of visual effects, it a unique rendering of black and white shadow that conveys a sense of unreality and mystique.

Yoshida believes in "the possibility of photography to depict even something invisible", and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP hopes that you will take the opportunity to discover the unique visual aesthetic of Yoshida's works, which create a poetic connection between the everyday and one's memories.