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  ©Hiroyuki Takenouchi

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  ©Hiroyuki Takenouchi

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  ©Hiroyuki Takenouchi

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  ©Hiroyuki Takenouchi

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  ©Hiroyuki Takenouchi

Takenouchi’s exhibitions to date include Liberty City (P.G.I.), Crow (P.G.I.), Things will get better over time (Gallery Trax), The Fourth Wall (PGI) and Distance and Depth (Studio Staff Only). Whether taking photos of cityscapes, trees and flowers in nature, daily life or dear friends, Takenouchi challenges society’s unspoken rules and strives to reveal the hidden nature of his subjects.

Confronting loneliness, alienation and oft-overlooked actions, his photography is an investigation into the nuances of diversity and identity.

Work began on what would become Distance and Depth after Takenouchi received a portrait request from a friend whose partner was moving far away. After meditating on what kind of album he’d make if it were his own lover, he settled on creating a self-contained world from photos of anything from landscapes all the way down to tiny, pebble-like details he’d taken over the years.

Originally planned for May, this exhibition has been delayed until Fall 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Coincidentally, we all experienced what it means to be ‘distant’ from others, physically and spiritually, when this outbreak occurred. We feel it even now, after the state of emergency has been officially lifted. The frustration of seeing someone or something on a screen but not being able to touch them is compounded by the fact that we’ve grown so used to the immediacy of the Information Age. This all-too-tangible form of isolation has given Takenouchi a fresh perspective on the project. The exhibition will feature approximately seventy archival pigment prints including new images created during the coronavirus lockdown.

Distance and Depth

Back when I was photographing crows routinely, I’d always hoped to shoot an albino. When I heard there was one in Niigata I headed there in the dead of winter to take its photo. It was so bored in its cage that it didn’t even bother to squawk at me as I trained my lens on it and shot away. I let myself believe I’d bonded with it that day. Visiting again a few years later, this time in the summer, I found not one but two crows. I also learned that now you couldn’t so much as look into that first crow’s cage without it going berserk. Perhaps the arrival of another crow made it realize that we were different species and it had begun to fear man. Instead of approaching it as a friend I tried stepping back and shooting through the bars of the cage like an outsider.

A friend once asked me to take pictures of him and his lover who would soon move far away. He wanted to give his partner an album to commemorate their time together. It got me thinking about what kind of album I’d make if I were in his shoes. My answer was to put together photos of pebbles, animals and landscapes I’d taken here and there to build a self-contained world that anyone, anywhere—even the white crow in Niigata—could feel connected with somewhere deep inside.

Hiroyuki Takenouchi

Hiroyuki Takenouchi

Born in Tokyo, Japan, 1982. Graduated from the Photography of Nihon University College of Art in 2008. He was the recipient of the honorable mention of the New Cosmos of Photography in 2008 and the special award of Shiogama Photo Festival in 2009. 

Solo exhibitions: Distance and Depth, Studio Staff Only (2020), The Fourth Wall, PGI (2017), Things will get better over time, Gallery Trax / Studio Staff Only (2017), Crow, Photo Gallery International (2015)

Publications: Distance and Depth, FUJITA (Jan. 2020), The Fourth Wall, T&M Projects (Nov. 2017), Things will get better over time, FUJITA (Mar. 2017)

PGI Exhibitions