The Japanese artist, based in Tokyo and New York, takes us on a journey into art and essay photography through her reflexive and mental peregrinations in black and white, on the edge of filmic narrative.
Chitose Kuroishi’s series are haunting, introspective visual stories that probe questions of identity. Hers particularly, in relation to herself, others, things, and her partner. But also her senses and sensations, questioning the very nature of the photographic medium. From the multiple to the particular, her work is intimate. Through her monochrome portfolio, this young virtuoso of the fine arts, who studied photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York, tells her own story, reflects and (re)questions herself. Her work, in the first place, probes her vision of the world between subjectivity and objectivity, which she fills organically. Chitose Kuroishi is one of a number of intriguing artists on the rise, winning awards and quickly capturing the attention of art magazines, galleries and institutions. Some of her images are included in the public collections of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Art (KMoPA) in Japan.
© Chitose Kuroishi
Life Between Past and Present
Her series examine the narrative potential of photography in the light of filmic images, between the visible and the invisible, reality and the extraordinary. “Take My Phantom”, for example. In this project, Chitose Kuroishi narrates the summer she spent with another version of herself, namely her ghost, just both of them, together, in the world.” In this way, she draws us between light and shadow into her true story, taking the form of an evolving succession of images as she walks through her hometown for the first time in a long time. “It was early summer, a humid, calm, windless afternoon. My body was sweating and the sun was at its zenith (…). Suddenly, the road came to a dead end in front of a picturesque house. (…) The sunlight fell slowly and cast shadows of my form on the front door. (…) Looking back, years later, I wonder if this experience happened in another dimension, a place where my life existed before I lived it, and where it went afterwards. She was alone and so was I. (…) That time is now gone forever, yet, sometimes, it seems like it never happened.”
© Chitose Kuroishi
© Chitose Kuroishi
Dissolving the Border
The “Untogether” series is of the same ilk. Except here, the ghost becomes a concrete being, her partner. Chitose Kuroishi explores her physical interaction with him, while visualising a mental relationship she has with him. In the relational context, “Together” implies a sense of unity, while “Untogether” suggests disunity. “No matter how many years I spend with my partner, there’s a certain boundary between us (…) I sometimes experience a moment of dissolution of the boundary, and yet I can’t be part of him. Our bodies remain two individual beings. The moment of unity never lasts long. The feeling is an illusion. (…) I sometimes experience that our souls have become one. However, it is impossible for us to exist as a single object (…) As this project progressed, I realised that “Untogether” was becoming “Together” as a work.” Here, she uses ISO 3200 to gain grain and lose detail, to better dissolve the boundary between their two bodily entities.
États-Unis – New York