NAOKI KIMURA
“Beautiful” is an instinct.
When I think of this, I encounter “Nagi -Lull-” and see the texture = “Qualia” in the mental landscape, and acquire the “fluctuation” in it as an inherent beauty.
“Nagi-Lull-” It is a visual fragment (fragment of continuity) of “fluctuation”, and is an attribute as “fluctuation” that transcends time and stands in the space.
“cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)” And just think.
When we think of something, we are simultaneously experiencing some kind of “fluctuation” as a texture=Qualia. Every time we do, we see the affirmation (recognition) of our existence, and feel a sense of “peace” (that we can exist). My attempt is to express one of the answers to the comfort of “fluctuation” through the method of photography. And it is a “re-experiencing” of aesthetic consciousness, which should be experienced as the texture “Qualia” with a sense of nostalgia and some kind of elation.
When the “fluctuation” touched by instinct is propagated as sympathy and exists as the sign of art, what is created as art works is explained by the theory of “Marginal art,” this is a concept in the vein of pragmatism and was spun in post-war Japan. The “treatment” for taste and beauty is a primitive human desire, and it would be the complex which has been belonging to the only individual instinctive experience, and which had given birth to unconscious art. When a photographic moment that captures the “fluctuation ≒ Nagi-Lull-” as its texture is established, it can become a work of art as a photographic expression.
If the origin of artistic expression is “instinctive ≒ primitive” as a derivative element before sublimating to Marginal art, the concept that is the root element of Marginal art and exists while floating and swaying on its “edge” is gazing at another new horizon. It is “Marginal Photographic Art,” as a concept that wavers very slightly, like Zero≒0 on the borderline of Marginal art – “Zero-horizon formula” – it is set at the core of my taste.
I have given all of my works the nature of monochrome.
By sealing the color, I led reality into abstraction and sought freedom of “thought”.
In that way, the infinite gradation of light and shadow shifts into a paradigm that reminds us of eternity.
Thinking about the fragments of reality that we can feel in the midst of human activity,
I would like to describe the photographs as “beautiful”.
Naoki Kimura
WORKS
BIOGRAPHY
A fine photographic artist, Kimura spent his childhood in Kyoto's Nishijin district.
Moved to the U.S. in 1987, He has produced a number of photographic art works based in Europe.
After his first solo exhibition in 2018, he started including Japanese motifs into his photography.
Based in Tokyo since around 2017.
While searching for a taste rooted in harmony and the beauty of things, which he calls "Nagi" - Mono no aware -, he captures the "Fluctuation" and its texture - qualia - that stand at the intersection of time and space.
Kimura's work has found a devoted audience at home and abroad, including Euro and US collectors.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
1993 "3 days in China Town / Naoki Kimura Exposure" at Shibuya PARCO,
Traveling Exhibition at PARCO Stores in Tokyo, Japan
2005 "ML Collaboration Project: Photographs as Interior” at Cassina IXC. in Tokyo, Japan
2009 "NAGI- Beginning, Fleeting Moment - Naoki Kimura" at Emon Photo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
2010 "Silent Monochrome" at Emon Photo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
2011 "PORTRAIT" at Emon Photo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
2012 ”Director’s Choice Vol.2” at Emon Photo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
2013 ”Director’s Choice Vol.3 B&W” at Emon Photo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
2014 "『Nagi』Photo Book Publication Commemorative Exhibition" at Emon Photo Gallery in Tokyo,
Japan
2015 "through the window - Fallen and Piled Up Lights" at Emon Photo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
2018 "nagi - anecdote - Naoki Kimura" at Soei Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
2019 "Architecture and Light" Group Exhibition by 6 Photographers Involved
with Architecture at Emon Photo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan
2022 Group Show at Art Fair Tokyo 2022 at Sho+1 booth in Tokyo, Japan
2022 Group Show at art stage OSAKA 2022 at Sho+1 booth in Osaka, Japan
2022 “nagi” on the edge of Milestone at Fireking cafe (Yoyogi-Uehara) in Tokyo, Japan
2023 "the tranquility as lullscape 'nagi' In praise of shadows" at Sho+1 in Tokyo, Japan
2024 Group Show at Art Fair Tokyo 2024 at Sho+1 booth in Tokyo, Japan
