Shinichi Maruyama: Silence & Noise
The mountainous terrain surrounding the city of Nagano, Japan, rises on all sides into the skyline like a series of giant sculptures that could only have been made by millions of years of nature’s work. This sublime landscape was the initial reason for Shinichi Maruyama to begin his photographic work, and the theme of transcendence and quiet beauty still infuse his art today.
Born in 1968, the young Maruyama used the towering mountains of his home district as the catalyst for his imagination. Following his passion for photography and imagery, he enrolled in Chiba University, where he studied image engineering and emulsion to further deepen his photographic skills. After graduating in 1992 Maruyama began work immediately at one of the world’s largest commercial photographic firms, Amana Japan. While working in this setting, Maruyama created a vast folio of his own work.
An extended period of time in 1994 in the country of Tibet saw Maruyama develop his skills as a freelance photographer. This allowed him the freedom of expression to create his own personal style. Beginning at Hakuhodo Photo Creative in 1998, he was able to engage in innovative advertising campaigns. Access to strobe equipment and other materials was the next catalyst in his growing interest in liquid and motion photography. Travelling frequently to Tibet, Maruyama created two photographic books about the Spiti Valley region, and the isolation and silence of the area imbued every shot. This region also affected Maruyama deeply, shifting his perspective to a more introverted type.
Soon after this introspective period Maruyama fully grasped the concept of digital photography. He began working on his most well known style; that of liquid motion, captured in the millisecond it is free to roam in air. Eschewing the typical ideal of knowing exactly where everything will be for a photograph, Maruyama embraced the spontaneity of his creation, throwing water and ink through the air in seemingly random direction. But there is nothing random about his movements. Gathering inspiration from haiku poetry and Shodo (Japanese calligraphy), his Kusho (Writing in the Sky) works are a capturing of the silent moment between explosive collisions of materials.
Inspiration springs from all places, and Maruyama compared his Shodo collection to the feeling and concept of a Zen garden, and the spiritual silence emanating from it. “The Zen garden is the expression of boundless cosmic beauty in a physical environment, created through intense human concentration, labor and repeated action. One can attain a feeling of serenity by simply being in the space of a Zen garden. My actions of repeatedly throwing liquid into the air and photographing the resulting shapes and sculptural formations over and over endlessly could be considered a form of spiritual practice to find personal enlightenment,” he said.
He also described his work as the air-based version of calligraphy with sumi ink. “As a young student, I often wrote Chinese characters in sumi ink. I loved the nervous, precarious feeling of sitting before an empty white page, the moment before my brush touched the paper. I was always excited to see the unique result of each new brushing…Once your brush touches paper, you must finish the character, you have one chance. It can never be repeated or duplicated. You must commit your full attention and being to each stroke. Liquids, like ink, are elusive by nature. As sumi ink finds its own path through the paper grain, liquid finds its unique path as it moves through air.”
As Maruyama’s liquid finds its way through space and air, so does Maruyama through the realm of photography. Beginning from solid foundations, he has worked through many different layers of experience to find his true artistic voice. Through works such as Shodo and Gardens, he has accomplished a rare feat; a purely naturalistic sense of improvisation, captured using vastly technological means. His work is a merging of old and new, black and white, ink and water, yin and yang, movement and stillness, noise and silence.
Maruyama’s first solo show in Melbourne, Australia titled Outside Looking In is on display at Lesley Kehoe Galleries until Saturday 13 September 2014.
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