8 - 18 July 2016
At "AL"
3-7-17, Ebisu-Minami, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan

We are all aware that a person's or scene's “Appearance” can have a profound significance on our thoughts. We know it’s only how things look, and we are mindful of this fact, but in the end, care a great deal about appearance. That mere fact is suggested by how much our society is judged by visual “appearance.”

What is, then, “appearance” in photography?

We are all equipped with the ability to read “something more” than the objects we see in a photo. We surely know many photos which evoke different ends of the emotional spectrum at the same time, like tears hidden behind a smile, a joy paired with despair, or peace mixed with fear.

Unlike painting, in which artists can create any kind of situation in a picture, photography is a crystallized moment of the past. A moment that truly existed. And yet viewers may try to sense “something” beyond its appearance and find a separate “truth” hidden beneath.

Looking at Ms Mika Watanabe’s works, I felt I was being challenged to solve a great mystery. With its suffocatingly rich textural details and a serene resignation that is freed from reality, her photography holds a tranquil gravity that invites viewers to go beyond its “appearance” into “a zone beyond reason.” Perhaps she, without it knowing herself, is trying to express an unexplored interior-frontier in her photography.

Naoko Ohta / Curator