Naoki Kimura
PROFILE
Relocating to the United States in 1987, Naoki Kimura began his full-scale pursuit of photography as a fine art.
Working exclusively in monochrome, he is a photographic artist who explores the relationships that emerge between light and shadow, time and space, perception and existence. While based in New York, he expanded his artistic activities across Europe—particularly in Italy, where his body of work and collaborations with architects approached architecture and urban spaces not merely as subjects to be documented, but as “sites” where layers of time and echoes of memory accumulate. For him, monochrome expression, by eliminating color, serves as a method to capture light and shadow, form, texture, and space in their purest sense.
Since moving his base to Tokyo around 2017, Kimura has developed his practice around the concept of Lullscapes (Nagi). The stillness found within these works is not mere quietude or emotional scenery, but an attempt to capture the instability of perception before an image settles into a fixed form—a moment where light, space, and time interact.
In recent years, grounded in his “Zero-Horizon Photo Art Theory” and “Shado,” he reconsiders photography not as the reproduction of an object, but as a relational structure brought into being by light, space, image, and the viewer’s perception. For Kimura, photography is not a means to record the world as a fixed image; it remains a medium through which to encounter light and presence before they fully become “visible,” capturing and holding that uncertain state.
In recent years, Kimura’s practice has further evolved through the development of “Zero-Horizon Photo Art Theory” and “Shado,” frameworks through which photography is approached not as the reproduction of an object, but as an encounter with the conditions from which perception and presence emerge.
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Osaka Prefecture, raised in Kyoto City, Japan
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Solo Exhibitions（Selected）：
2026 “Nagi-Rei Lullscapes – Before It Begins ∶ Zero-Horizon Photographic Art”
2025 “Lullscapes in Light and Shadow” Hilton Tokyo Chocolate Lounge, Tokyo
2024 “KOIN – a time flies as lullscapes” KYOTO TSUTAYA BOOKS, Kyoto
2023 “the tranquility as lullscape ‘nagi’ In praise of shadows” Sho+1, Tokyo
2022 “’nagi’ on the edge of Milestone” Fireking cafe, Tokyo
2018 “’nagi’ – anecdote – Naoki Kimura” Soei Gallery, Tokyo
2015 “through the window – Fallen and Piled Up Lights” Emon Photo Gallery, Tokyo
2014 “『Nagi』Photo Book Publication Commemorative Exhibition” Emon Photo Gallery, Tokyo
2013 “Director’s Choice Vol.3 B&W” Emon Photo Gallery, Tokyo
2012 “Director’s Choice Vol.2” Emon Photo Gallery, Tokyo
2011 “PORTRAIT” Emon Photo Gallery, Tokyo
2010 “Silent Monochrome” Emon Photo Gallery, Tokyo
2009 “NAGI- Beginning, Fleeting Moment – Naoki Kimura” Emon Photo Gallery, Tokyo
2005 “ML Collaboration Project: Photographs as Interior” Cassina IXC, Tokyo
1993 “3 days in China Town / Naoki Kimura Exposure” Shibuya PARCO, Traveling Exhibition at PARCO Stores, Tokyo
Group Exhibitions（Selected）：
2025 “Between Scenes” Sho+1, Tokyo
2024 “Art Collaboration Kyoto（ACK）” Sho+1, Kyoto
2024 “ART FAIR TOKYO 2024” Sho+1, Tokyo
2022 “art stage OSAKA” Sho+1, Osaka
2022 “ART FAIR TOKYO 2022” Sho+1, Tokyo
2019 “Architecture and Light” Emon Photo Gallery, Tokyo
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