TAB Event - Margriet Smulders + Takeshi Kainuma "Aqualand"

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At Emon Photo Gallery
Media: Photography

The fact that 2008 is the 150th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations between Japan and the Netherlands and next year is the 400th anniversary of commercial relations between these two countries calls for commemoration. In the end of the 18th century, when Europe was embroiled in the Napoleonic wars, the only place in the world where the Dutch flag was being flown was on the island of Dejima, in Japan. For Japan, this symbolized a “window to the West”, and ever since these two countries have worked tirelessly to foster these relationships, even creating a friendship in the process. Over the next two years, we will be holding “Nederland in Japan2008-2009”. 
Amid the growing recognition of a need to bring our long-standing mutual tradition into the future, the Emon Photo Gallery has elected to answer this need for deeper understanding of arts and culture by hosting a photography joint exhibition by artists from Japan and the Netherlands. Margriet Smulders was born in 1955 in Bussum, the Netherlands. She held a special interest in flowers from the time she was very young. After graduating from the Academy of Visual Arts, Arnhem, from the 80s she specialized in portraits with arranged flowers in the background, and in the 90s she began creating experimental photography with a floral motif. 
In her more recent works tulips are the most prevalent of the cut flowers she uses, along with mirrors and water. As is evident in the title of a series she completed last year, “GET DRANK”, her works are surging with a flood of vibrant colors that seems overwhelm and “drink in” the viewer. Her picked flowers drift in water. They have the exquisite luster of flowers rotting at the brink. With the frame as their stage, the flowers take on the character of sensuality, and perform it elegantly. These works have a message overflowing with feminine sensibilities that give them a fierce individuality that makes them stand out. In this exhibition, eight pieces from this series, including 2 pieces over 2 meters in size, will be exhibited for the first time in Japan.
Takeshi Kainuma is a photographer who photographs from within nature. Born in 1962 in Tokyo, in 1996 he went to the United States and spent 9 years there creating series focusing on nature. In this exhibition, his colorful “Kobotokegawa” series that surpasses even his monochromatic “BUSH” series and 8 works hand selected from his “Family Ground” series will be featured. “Kobotokegawa” layers rich colors several times over into a vibrant three dimensional world, and “Family Ground” focuses its lens on various organisms trapped sleeping within ice. These works bring out the rich nature that spreads beneath our feet and shows a depiction of a world that resembles the cosmos, filled with order and harmony. The motif of plants and water is one of the characteristics that these two artists share, and though their style and sensibilities are completely opposite, when you view their works together in the same space, the shared idea behind them seems to be “works that draw in on the depth of color, and depict through photography”. The water and flowers of these two artists sway lambently like works of the Impressionists and have an expressive painted quality. Here at our gallery you can see the contrast in senses between the West and the East.

March 2008. Emon Photo Gallery Director, Seiji Komatsu

Translation：Junko Kawakami

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