Koji Murata
Photography
村田 光司
ABOUT ME
Koji Murata
- born in Shiga prefecture, Japan in 1958.
- started to use single-lens reflex camera for taking astronomical photographs at age 10.
- have started to take photographs by digital single-lens reflex camera, do image procession and color management officially since 2008.
- was fascinated by printing on Japanese paper and then started to study the gradation
peculiarity on every printing paper.
- became a member of Samurai Foto in 2013.
- "Japanese Beauty" SAMURAI FOTO exhibition in Tokyo, Japan (2013)
- SAMURAI FOTO exhibition in Yamagata, Japan (2014)
- the finalist of the Photolucida Critical Mass in 2016
- "Emerging Visions of Japan" SAMURAI FOTO exhibition in Yokohama, Japan (2017)
- "Making a beautiful bridge" SAMURAI FOTO exhibition in Yokohama, Japan (2018)
- the finalist of the Photolucida Critical Mass in 2019
- "Endless Discovery" SAMURAI FOTO exhibition in Tokyo, Japan (2020)
- "Making of a beautiful bridge" SAMURAI FOTO exhibition in Tokyo, Japan (2021)
English / 日本語
STATEMENT
Excessive human activities have destroyed nature. And I feel sad and painful for it. In Japan we have survived through a lot of natural disasters in a long history. We are in awe of nature and we know the philosophy to live with nature. This is what we learned from these painful experiences. While in nature, we are healed and gain more energy. The wisdom that we learned from the history of natural disasters will help us to overcome human crisis. I’d like to cause a stir among people around the world to raise concerns over the issue of coexisting with nature through my artworks.
MY EXPRESSION
The three important factors for my expression in my projects are; first, the existence of outline of the object that can strongly indicate my theme, second, the imagination that allows us to travel back to the ancient times when we awed nature, and third, the existence of colors that invoke them.
Outline of objects is something that only humans can recognize. I was attracted to the strong impression and effects that these lines can bring to my photos as I compared them with ordinary photos without them.
As I emphasized the shape of the objects by showing the outlines, I omitted and simplified my expression by eliminating unnecessary details as much as possible and flattened the tones. By doing so, I thought my theme would stand out better.
As a result of my endavor of omitting and simplifying, I was able to find my expression having something common with a traditional Japanese‘Ukiyo-e’or woodblock print. I somewhat feel I was able to understand how Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950), a famous Japanese woodblock artist, felt when he had shifted away from oil painting/ watercolor and turned to woodblock.