Recollections vol.2; Tokyo, June 2011 - March 27 - April 21, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Masayo Nishimura
Recollections vol.2; Tokyo, June 2011
Photography

March 27 - April 21, 2012
Opening Reception, Thursday, March 29th, 6pm - 8pm


Ceres gallery is pleased to present Masayo Nishimura’s Recollections vol.2;Tokyo, June 2011, a solo exhibition of Nishimura’s photographs. The Opening Reception will take place on Thursday, March 29th from 6pm until 8pm. The artist will be present.

This exhibition features Nishimura’s color photographs of various passersby almost all of which were captured in one sunny afternoon on the streets of Tokyo, Japan in June 2011.

For this project, Nishimura shot around Shinjuku Station--the busiest business and shopping area in Tokyo. However in her images, the pedestrians on the sidewalks and crosswalks appear strangely frozen in the middle of their action while they are moving their feet one step forward toward their destinations.
Some are captured while holding umbrellas, some are frozen while conversing with others or talking on cell phones, and some are caught while running hurriedly with long strides - all of these actions are momentary paused. Along with beaming sunlight and dark shadows cast on the ground, the scenes look surreal, fictitious and curiously soundless, even though the actual location is filled with traffic sounds and crowd noise.

In her sequential series of Scramble Crossing, Nishimura experiments with the consecutive shooting of people on a scramble crossing. During the brief period of time when the traffic signal changes from green to red, she captures various types of pedestrians as well as vehicles crossing in opposite directions. These paused frames and sequential images reveal interesting “raw” expressions of people in their facial and body language, which they are not normally conscious of. On the scramble, each person seems to tell his or her own personal story even though they appear frozen in time.

By using a wide-angle lens with fixed aperture and a relatively high shutter speed with no flash or tripod or close up shot, Nishimura was able to capture all of the images casually and spontaneously as a distant observer without interacting with her subjects. Her approach becomes a sampling of everyday life out on the streets.

An added bonus is that these everyday scenes often transform themselves into a unique expression and unexpectedly tell stories by themselves, as also exemplified by her previous NYC subway photographs.
* All the shots are taken with a 35 mm film camera with Fuji color film and hand-printed by the artist on her final stock of Kodak paper.

About Masayo Nishimura:
Masayo Nishimura is a native of Osaka, Japan. In 1986, she moved to New York to study dance. In 1993, she began her study of photography at CUNY Hunter College under Professor Mark Feldstein, where she discovered her visual interest in NYC subway stations. She also took several workshops at the School of Visual Arts & the International Center of Photography. Since then her subway-themed photographic works have been exhibited in various galleries in New York City.

In 2000, she started working on a series of color photographs dealing with the lights and shadows created by subway architecture. The work entitled Uptown Bound was first exhibited in September 2001 in New York City and has been receiving enthusiastic responses from viewers. In 2008 she returned to her native land and captured everyday scenes in the Tokyo subway. Those works was first exhibited in 2011 in an exhibition titled Recollections: From New York to Tokyo, which evoked responses from viewers as the transformation of an everyday scene into a unique expression. Currently she lives and works in New York City.

For more information please contact Stefany Benson, Director at:

Ceres Gallery
547 West 27th St Suite 201 New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212-947-6100
Fax: 212-202-5455

art@ceresgallery.org
http://ceresgallery.org/
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12pm - 6pm and Thursday 12-8pm.