Kozo Miyoshi

"Dig a Well –Along the Road"

Oct 11 - Nov 26, 2022
PGI

Kozo Miyoshi

"Dig a Well –Along the Road"

Oct 11 - Nov 26, 2022
PGI

  • ©Kozo Miyoshi

  • ©Kozo Miyoshi

  • ©Kozo Miyoshi

  • ©Kozo Miyoshi

  • ©Kozo Miyoshi

  • ©Kozo Miyoshi

  • ©Kozo Miyoshi

The Japanese photographer Kozo Miyoshi began his career as a photographer in the 1970s and has been photographing with an 8×10 large format camera since 1981. He has developed an unique photographic world unfolding in meticulously arranged captures, for example in his 1980s series of quintessential Japanese sceneries such as Innocents, Picture Show and Conservatory, or in Southwest, Chapel, CACTI and Airfield, which he created when he spent five years living in Tucson, Arizona, in the 1990s.

          In 2009, he switched to a 16×20 inch ultra-large format camera and continued to photograph while traveling, resulting in series such as Sakura (2003, 2009, 2020), Yubune and Ringo as well as On the Road Again (2017), photographed during trips in the United States.

          Kozo Miyoshi photographed his series Dig a Well between 2009 and 2022 during his extensive travels. In an interview, he once said that, “My photographs emerge from journeys.” On his way towards cherry blossom trees or bathhouses, again and again Miyoshi happens upon stirring sceneries which he confronts through his camera, as if entirely uninvolved and impartial. The scenes that catch his interest may be landscapes he sees for the first time or sights he has passed by many times before. In each case, he sets up his tripod, prepares his camera, and waits for the light.

          Created during several trips without fixed subjects or themes, these photographs become like individual points that together constitute a journey, free to resonate within the subconscious memory of the viewer. Looking at Kozo Miyoshi’s captured scenes reveals the deep, rich time that unfolds within them, as if gazing down into the depths of a deep well.

 

Recently, I dug a well. 

There was an old well at my family home. I liked looking into the distant reflection of the water surface 

which sort of resembled a round hand mirror. 

One day, clouds shadowed on the surface and a propeller plane cut across between them in a millisecond.   

Triumphantly, I told the story to a friend; he turned the other way.  

After that, I stopped talking about the well and forgot about looking into it also. 

Recently, I dug a well.

 

Kozo Miyoshi

 

 

Kozo Miyoshi

Recent solo exhibitions include SHASHIN (Canon Gallery S, 2021), On the Road Again & YUBUNE (BOOKS f3, 2020), SAKURA (PGI, 2020), MAYU (PGI, 2018), On the Road Again (PGI, 2017), RINGO (PGI, 2015), 1972~ (gallery 916, 2013), SAKURA (1839 Contemporary Gallery, Taiwan, 2011). Recent group exhibitions include Farewell Photography: The Hitachi Collection of Postwar Japanese Photographs: 1961-1989 (Phoenix Art Museum, USA, 2022), Longer Ways to Go (Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, USA, 2018 and Phoenix Art Museum, USA, 2017), In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3-11 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA, 2015), among others.