F a u v e Photo Zine

Photo Zine by Hanna Kirishima

Limited Edition of 50 copies, 50 pages, B4 size (182 x 257 mm)

Description by Hanna Kirishima:

I remember when I was a child, visiting many art museums with my mother and father. Having loved painting and drawing ever since I could hold a pencil, I always looked at works by famous Fauvist and abstract painters such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse or André Derain. I didn’t adore their paintings nor did I dislike it but I remember them leaving a lasting impression on me.

While Fauvism was the first avant-garde art movement that developed in the 20th century, the violence and rawness of the painter’s works had art critics call the painters Fauves, “wild cat or beasts” in French. The pure colors that look as if they were applied straight from paint tubes, aggressively painted on a canvas creating a sense of explosion; as if they were painted by some wild beast.

Seeing these paintings had me feeling very conflicted about the art itself. I couldn’t tell if I hated how effortlessly painted they looked when compared to a Botticelli painting for example, or if I had loved the rawness of it. This is how I see my photography. I find that when I photograph, the pictuxres I end up liking are not the photographs that were shot calculated or composed but rather the ones I shot on the go without much thinking or preparation.

It’s the rawness that I strive and yearn for in both my art and in reality. In having conversations with people, in traveling the world and trying to find the most uninhabited wild places, in shooting portraits of people in their pure and natural state. I almost had a sort of obsession towards the concept of rawness as well as the loss of innocence and purity. Searching the pureness of beings and things, even in the impure. As we grow old we lose our inner child, curiosity and purity. I constantly find myself trying to hold on to the moments and things that are raw and pure.

In this series Fauve, my first released photo book, I hope to encapsulate the beauty within these moments, people, places and things. Even objects which are conventionally seen as symbols of impurity. I try to look at my subjects in an unbiased and curious way, just as a wild beast or animal would. Just appreciating the nature of these subjects, and of life as simple as it sounds.

鉛筆を握られるようになった途端から、絵を描くことが大好きだった。子供の頃から両親に連れられ、たくさんの美術館を訪れるなか、アンリ・マティス、アンドレ・ドラン、パブロ・ピカソといったフォーヴィスムや抽象画家の作品に魅了されるようになった。好きとか嫌いとは違う、彼らの絵が私の心をわしづかみするのだ。

フォーヴィスムは20世紀最頭の前衛芸術運動だが、その暴力的な生々しさから、美術評論家は彼らをフランス語で「野獣派」と呼んだ。絵の具をチューブからそのまま絞り出したような激しい色彩と荒々しい筆づかいに、「まるで野獣の檻の中にいるようだ」と評された。

これらの絵を見て、私は葛藤を覚えた。緻密に描かれたボッティチェリの絵のような、溜息が出るほど美しい作品ももちろん好きだが、フォービズムの鮮烈な色彩と、まるで野獣か子供が気ままに描いたかのような大胆不敵なタッチ、その頓着のなさと生々しさには強烈に惹かれるのだ。その感覚は、私の写真に対する考え方に通ずるといえるだろう。

写真を撮る時、最終的に気に入るのは、計算して撮った写真や構図ではなく、心の感じるまま、自由に撮った一枚なのだ。芸術と日常の両方において、私が手に入れたいのは“生々しさ”なのである。人と話をするとき、世界を旅するなか行き着いた手つかずの大自然と対峙するとき、飾らぬありのままの友人の姿を写真におさめるとき。私は、いかなるものなかにも、その純粋さを見出したい。私たちは年を重ねるにつれて、内なる無邪気さを喪っていく。そして私は今、生々しく純粋な瞬間にしがみつこうとしている自分に気づく。

私の初の写真集となる「Fauve」では、この瞬間、人、場所、物の中にある“美しさ”を閉じ込めたいと考える。不純物の象徴と見なされてきたものでさえも。野獣や動物のように偏見なく、ただ目の前にあるものの自然な姿に感謝を込めて。

桐島はんなより