Kindness, courtesy and respect for nature and things are at the center of Japanese culture and the normal daily life of the population. This important cultural aspect is reflected in the Japanese language in words and expressions that represent concepts that in other languages are not enclosed in a single term.
Kikubari is a Japanese word that essentially means “to be careful or to pay attention”: attention to a detail, a gesture or a practice, but above all attention to what surrounds us.
The sometimes almost maniacal attention is among the characteristics that distinguish Japanese people and their arts including photography. The latter, thanks to its natural predisposition to encourage observation and listening to the surrounding, as well as to the curious historical relationship that saw it become extremely popular in the late 1940s, has become one of the means through which the sensitivity of many Japanese authors has found a way to be spoken.
Rinko Kawauchi’s work looks at ordinary things and everyday situations. Her images reach their specific quality thanks to a wise use of perspective and cutting, as well as to the subtle search for a natural light combined with veils of color that bring his images to a sense of enchantment.
Kawauchi works in series. Collections of images that, in the form of open narratives, know how to combine poetry and emotion with representations of mortality and occasional melancholy.