Rinko Kawauchi

• Name — Rinko Kawauchi HonFRPS • Born — 6 April 1972 • Birthplace — Shiga, Japan • Education — Seian University of Art and Design • Known for — Photography • Website — rinkokawauchi.com

Kawauchi became interested in photography while studying graphic design and photography at Seian University of Art and Design where she graduated in 1993. She first worked in commercial photography for an advertising agency for several years before embarking on a career as a fine art photographer. She has mentioned that she continues to work the advertising job. Her background and experience with design have influenced the edits and arrangements of photos in her series. Kawauchi often thinks about new ways to see her photographs, allowing her to continue to find new meaning and significance in her work. There is little known about her personal life and family, but through her photo book Cui Cui (2005) she portrays the memories of her family, which she has said to have been shooting for over a decade. The photos in said book capture all the ordinaries and emotions of life, ranging from the happiness of childbirth to the heartbreak of death. At age 19, she began making prints of her first black-and-white photographs, and it wasn't until five years later that she started printing color photographs. After experimenting with different cameras, she decided to stay with the Rolleiflex 6 × 6, which she still uses. In 2001, she published simultaneously her first three photo books: Utatane ("catnap"), Hanabi ("fireworks"), and Hanako (a Japanese girl's name). In the following years she won prizes for two of the books in Japan. In 2004 Kawauchi published Aila; in 2010 Murmuration, and in 2011 Illuminance. Kawauchi's art is rooted in Shinto, the ethnic religion of the people of Japan. According to Shinto, all things on earth have a spirit, hence no subject is too small or mundane for Kawauchi's work; she also photographs "small events glimpsed in passing," conveying a sense of the transient. Kawauchi sees her images as parts of series that allow the viewer to juxtapose images in the imagination, thereby making the photograph a work of art and allowing a whole to emerge at the end. She likes working in photo books because they allow the viewer to engage intimately with her images. Her photographs are mostly in 6 × 6 format. However, upon being invited to the Brighton Photo Biennial in 2010, Kawauchi first photographed digitally and began taking photos that were not square. Kawauchi also composes haiku poems. She lived for many years in Tokyo and in 2018 moved to the countryside on the outskirts of the city.

Since she began her photographic career, Kawauchi's photographs have worked to capture intimate and poetic moments of the world around her. They often include radiant light that produces a dream-like quality. The sublimity of her photographs are further enhanced by her use of soft colors as well as her awareness of beauty in even the most banal moments. There is not one specific theme or concept that Kawauchi chooses to explore with her image creation; rather, she does it spontaneously, observing and reacting to everything that is around her before doing any sort of editing. She focuses on just shooting, photographing everything that attracts her eyes before looking back and thinking about why she was interested in those subjects. Another subject that she explored in her book, Ametsuchi, was the practice of religious ceremonies and rituals that hinted at an earthly cycle involving the concepts of time and impermanence. In the book, she depicts Japan's Mount Aso, a sacred site for a Shinto ritual called yakihata, and its volcanic landscape. The ritual is a long-standing tradition dating back about 1,300 years in which farmland is burned yearly to maintain its sustainability for new crops as opposed to using chemicals, and the communities at Aso are among the few that continue this tradition. Ironically, after witnessing essentially the rebirth of farmland take place, Kawauchi claims that she burned away her old self and was reborn herself. In her book Halo, she continues to explore that theme with different rituals at other locations. She traveled to Izumo, Japan to witness a ritual that involves the lighting of sacred flames to welcome the gods. She also went to the Hebei province of China to see new year celebrations, including a 500 year old tradition of throwing molten iron at the city walls to make their own fireworks.

• 2012: Seeing Shadow (14:50 min) • 2012: Ametsuchi (14:50 min) • 2012: Haruarashi (Spring Storm) (5:55 min) • 2015: Illuminance (56:26 min) • 2017: Halo (7:07 min)

• 1998: Utatane, Guardian Garden, Tokyo • 1999: Hitoiko, Light Works, Yokohama, Japan • 2000: Hibi, Aki-Ex Gallery, Tokyo • 2001: Hanabi, Gray Gallery, Tokyo (book) • 2001: Hanako, Little More Gallery, Tokyo (book) • 2001: Utatane, Parko Gallery, Tokyo (book) • 2002: Collette, Paris, France • 2003: vonRot Gallery, Berlin, Germany • 2004: Cohan and Leslie, New York • 2003: Rinko Kawauchi, 4F Gallery, Los Angeles, California • 2003: Wacall Photo Exhibition, Spiral Garden, Tokyo • 2004: Aila, California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside (book) • Little More Gallery, Tokyo • 2005: Cohan and Leslie, New York • Kanaz Forest of Creation, Fukui, Japan • 2004: Galerie Priska Pasquer at Paris Photo • 2005: Cui Cui, Quarter, Florence, Italy (book) • 2005: Aila + Cui Cui + the eyes, the ears, Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, Paris (book: the eyes, the ears) • Galleria Carla Sozzani, Milan, Italy • 2005/06: Aila + the eyes, the ears, Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, Denmark • Fotografins Hus, Stockholm, Sweden • Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, Sweden • 2006: Rinko Kawauchi, The Photographers' Gallery, London. • 2006/07: Rinko Kawauchi, Galerie Priska Pasquer, Cologne, Germany (and Paris Photo) • 2007: Rinko Kawauchi, Cohan and Leslie, New York • 2007: Semear, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo. (book) • 2008: Foil Gallery, Tokyo • 2008: Cui Cui, Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka, Japan • 2008: Rinko Kawauchi, Antoine de Vilmorin, Paris • 2009: Condensation, Mountain Fold Gallery, New York • 2009: a pause, Gallery Trax, Yamanashi, Japan • 2010: the eyes, the ears, Kunstverein Augsburg, Germany • 2010: A Glimmer in Silence, Galerie Priska Pasquer, Cologne • 2010: Aila, Seian University of Art and Design, Shiga, Japan • 2010: Iridescence, Meessen de Clercq, Brussels, Belgium • 2010: Rinko Kawauchi: Transient Wonders, Everyday Bliss – Photography, Video and Slides 2001–2009, Argos Center for Art and Media, Brussels • 2011: Illuminance, Foil Gallery, Tokyo. (book) • Gallery at Hermès, NewYork • 2013: Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland • 2012: Light and Shadow, Traumaris Photography Space, Tokyo. (book) • 2012: Illuminance, Ametsuchi, Seeing Shadow, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo. • 2013: Ametsuchi, Aperture Gallery, New York. (book) • 2013/14: Galerie Priska Pasquer, Cologne. (Edition of 1000 prints of a photo from the series) • 2014: Main Gallery, Lesley University College of Art and Design. • 2014: Illuminance & Ametsuchi, Fotomuseum Antwerp (in cooperation with Galerie Priska Pasquer) • 2014: New Pictures 9: Rinko Kawauchi, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis. • 2015: Illuminance, KunstHausWien, Vienna • 2016: Museum of Contemporary Art, Kumamoto, Japan (book: The river embraced me) • 2017: Halo, Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich. (book) • 2022: M/E On this sphere / Endlessly interlinking, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (book) • 2023: Shiga Museum of Art • 2024: a faraway shining star, twinkling in hand, Fotografiska Stockholm. • 2024: a faraway shining star, twinkling in hand, Fotografiska Tallinn. • 2024: a faraway shining star, twinkling in hand, Fotografiska Berlin. • 2025: Rinko Kawauchi, Galerie écho 119, Paris

• 2005: Autumn 2005, Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Netherlands • 2008: Creatures from the Collection and Other Themes, Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Netherlands • 2008: Review/Preview – Japanese Photographs, Galerie Priska Pasquer, Cologne (with Osamu Shiihara, Shōmei Tōmatsu, Daidō Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki, Issei Suda, Asako Narahashi, Rinko Kawauchi, and Mika Ninagawa) • 2010: Summer Loves, Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Netherlands • 2010: Brighton Photo Biennial: New Documents, curated by Martin Parr, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, UK. (book: Murmuration) • 2011: Bye Bye Kitty!!! Between Heaven and Hell in Contemporary Japanese Art, curated by David Elliott, Japan Society, New York. With Kawauchi and Makoto Aida, Manabu Ikeda, Tomoko Kashiki, Haruka Kojin, Kumi Machida, Yoshitomo Nara, Kohei Nawa, Motohiko Odani, Hiraki Sawa, Chiharu Shiota, Tomoko Shioyasu, Hisashi Tenmyouya, Yamaguchi Akira, Miwa Yanagi and Tomoko Yoneda. • 2015: In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (catalogue) • 2018: A Beautiful Moment, Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Netherlands • 2026: Nusfjord x Fotografiska. An exhibition with Elizaveta Porodina in Nusfjord, Norway

Kawauchi's work is held in the following collections: • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco: 7 works. • Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam • Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo