Masao Yamamoto

Artist’s statement:

“Just as a painter putting line to paper is attracted by natural forms, so I am attracted to natural phenomena when I release the shutter, it is fortunate that the machine we call ‘camera’ captures only that which is present before its lens. When imagination draws a line to boast creativity, a paintings without reality results. A photograph, however, is anchored in reality. I photograph to capture existing phenomena. Thinking about this day by day, the mountain ceases to be a mountain, the cloud is no cloud, things left behind are not left behind… maybe I begin to see what only I can see. Releasing the shutter, developing film, printing on paper - I accumulate impressions. I enjoy having these impressions in a leather box, in a drawer at home, or in an album.

Up to now I have been working in the form of installation. What overflows from one photograph would flow into the next piece, and in two’s and threes, the groups would create a combined effect, like the layered notes of an orchestra.

But recently my thoughts are more focused on the individual incident - the urge to dwell deeper into each element is rising slowly. A landscape or an incident around me is cut out into a square piece of photograph. What that square piece will inspire in you… perhaps it is something that already exists inside of you.”