Elijah Gowin‘s first exhibition in Japan, Photographs: Hymnal of Dreams, is being held through
the last Tuesday this month. 

Hymnal of Dreams is a collection of narratives constructed of images arising from his dreamsand boyhood experiences, which he spent on his family’s land in Virginia. 

Raised in the north by southern parents, he finds his home and place in truest sense rooted in the southern environments, and stories of relatives, landscapes, and people in his recollections ofboyhood all become the source of his imagery. 

Gowin tries to grasp his human connection to this geography as new place, ” ….a realm wheredreams and memories are given a material presence,” and defines his constructed images as, ” a search for meaning in the present, ” though alluding to the past.

Some 40 images, including new work in the series, are on display.

Elijah Gowin was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1967 and received his MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico.
His father is also a photographer, Emmet Gowin. Elijah Gowin had photographed memories and phenomena in a dream as a child in a story style “Hymnal of Dreams” since 1994, which was introduced in Japan on the first time in 2004.
His awards including the John S. Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 as well as grants from the Charlotte Street Foundation and the Puffin Foundation.
He founded Tin Roof Press to publish books and photography in 2008.
Currently, he is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.