Exhibit: Hiroshi Watanbe at Oswald Gallery, 14 January
2005 through through 10 March 2005.
By STEVE HOPSON
Contributing Editor
AUSTIN, Texas (Fotophile.com) — Hiroshi
Watanbe's exhibit of monochrome photographs displays an
expert presentation of subtle beauty and exquisite prints. A native
of Japan, Watanabe lives in the U.S. but travels frequently to Japan
and other countries to record the beauty of his world, as reflected
in most of the art in the exhibit.
Half of the 40 photographs focus on portraits of Matsuo Kabuke —
amateur, Japanese actors dressed in traditional attire. The
remaining photographs reflect the artist's striving to preserve
ephemeral aspects of life that he witnessed in his travels. All of
Watanabe's medium-format photographs feature subtle toning and
beautiful printing.
Watanabe approaches his subjects as a neutral observer, freezing
time to record his rapidly changing world. Nowhere is this more
obvious than the artist's portraits of the kabuki players,
each of which show individuals in traditional costumes. With a
playful attitude, the artist includes portraits of these costumed
actors dressed as bunnies, shogun warriors and geishas. One portrait
displays the gentle sloping neck of a geisha above her kimono and
below her heavily ribboned and tied hair. Another image focuses on
the bare feet of an actress below her boldly striped dress. The
subjects' sad or angry eyes stare at the viewer through many of
these photographs.
Watanabe culls his second portfolio on display, titled
"Observations," from his travels across the globe including Burma,
India, Equador and New York City. One photo features a white bulldog
resting at the feet of his owner seated in a dark, New Orleans bar,
evoking the feelings in Henri Cartier-Bresson's portrait of
William Faulkner.
"American Museum of Natural History" depicts the shadowy figure
of a young girl before a diorama of four African oryx, causing the
viewer to wonder which image is real — the girl or the African
plains. Another image confronts the viewer with the giant,
bell-shaped dome of a temple in Mandalay, Burma, put into
perspective by a tiny, silhouette of a young boy standing on the
monument's base.
A common theme throughout many of these photographs is the
sensation of viewing the subject through a veil, such as the pattern
created by screens, fabric or wrought iron. Watanabe variously uses
this technique to obscure, highlight or beautify his subjects. One
such photograph shows a worker building a structure of metal rods in
Quito, Equador. As we stare up at the sky, through the grid formed
of the rods, we see the shadowed worker placing a rod on the
structure, but the real subject seems to be the clouds far above his
head.
The show's standout image is "White Terns, Midway Atoll." Again,
the view is up, this time through a thin, gauze-like tent. A flock
of terns sits on the tent, their bodies seen as shadows while their
webbed feet are seen directly.
Master printing of Watanabe's images is the glue that holds
together the images in this display. The beauty of his use of mist,
shadowy figures and gauzy veils would be lost without his ability to
render these subtleties on photo paper. Accentuating Watanabe's
beautiful printing skills is his use of toning to further capture
and convey the moods of his images. [2005.02]
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