Wataru Yamamoto is currently finishing up a Master’s degree at Tama Art University. 2013 he had his solo exhibition ‘Drawing a Line’ at the photographer’s gallery, Tokyo and ‘Plane Tree Observations’ at the Yumiko Chiba Associates Viewing Room Shinjuku, Tokyo. His works where shown in group exhibitions at the Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, 2010 and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 2011. In a series titled “Leaf of Electric Light,” currently part of the Bio Art exhibition, Yamamoto uses a process known as Kirlian photography to create ghostly, ephemeral images of leaves. Originally thought to be able to capture some form of mystical energy field, or aura, of living organisms, Kirlian photography involves using high voltage to generate an electric discharge of an object, which is then captured on film. Although science has largely debunked the myth of the so-called energy fields portrayed, the process – as Yamamoto proves – is still useful in photographing objects in new light.
Since the 1990s, after half a century of chasing after the West in the post-war period, Japan began to globally disseminate its own cultural expression. Japan’s unique cultural output has been particularly noteworthy in architecture, animation, comic and fashion. Japanese photography too has become established as a unique cultural product.
The Western art world has passionately embraced the works of Nobuyoshi Araki and Daido Moriyama since the early 1990s. Soon after, younger star photographers, such as HIROMIX, who is intimately connected to Tokyo’s subculture, also gained wide recognition. In the 2000s, a number of photographers including Rinko Kawauchi, Tomoko Sawada and Lieko Shiga received strong acclaim one after another. On the other hand, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Yasumasa Morimura, whose work are u...