Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present Pink Shadow, a solo show by Shunsuke Kano, starting Friday, October 26, 2018.
Born 1983 in Osaka, Japan, Shunsuke Kano completed his graduate studies at Kyoto Saga University of Arts in 2010. Kano has been presenting photographic works that question the act of looking by using methods that generate awareness of complex layers. His works have been exhibited in solo shows such as Construction Cross Section (Maki Fine Arts, Tokyo 2016), and Shunsuke KANO | Jenga and Fountain for the 8th shiseido art egg (Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo 2014), as well as group shows including VOCA 2017 Vision of Contemporary Art (Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, 2017), and Photography Will Be (Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, 2014). Pink Shadow marks Kano's fifth show at Maki Fine Arts, and he will showcase new works inspired by Kyoto artist Shoichi Ida (1941-2006).

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Layer or Layers

His recent series is entitled 'layer of my labor.' Since the English language, in a rather matter-of-fact manner, requires either a singular or plural distinction, I offered Shunsuke Kano a friendly suggestion that, if multiple layers were involved, an 's' be added to the word 'layer.' He hesitated. It was as though he worried that once viewers saw the word 'layers,' they would focus on determining how many layers existed, and he preferred to prevent such acts of calculation on the images. No matter how many times the sequence of capture, output, and capture has been repeated, the state of lamination, the final photographic image achieved, and its output would result in a thin, completely singular layer.
Kano says his recent creations were greatly influenced by works of artist Shoichi Ida, in particular his 'Lotus Sutra' series. Ida's creative process has always been guided by his concept of 'surface is the between,' generating vertical images printed on horizontal pieces of paper. The convergence of the horizontal surface of a lotus leaf and a vertical sutra is an example of Ida's mode of concept. Kano says he focused on the aspects recognized from this series--the prints made on the back of the paper. Ida views the image printed on the paper as a surface generate between the paper and the print block. Through this addition--the formation of surface occurring on the back of the paper--the 'between' becomes a layer and the surface becomes a layer.
In his recent works, Kano has implemented a step involving photographing filtered images from the back of the paper, adding a layer of labor from the back side. In Ida's case, regardless of whether or not the viewer can recognize the layer on the back, it was vital that the image viewed be supported by the state of being the 'between' layer. In Kano's case, however, while respecting Ida's ideas, he drops the 's' from the final image without a hint of uncertainty, as though proclaiming 'a surface is simply a surface.'

Yoshihiro Nakatani (curator, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art)