Artwork Statements
Ordinary photography of the places I lived was not realistic because I had contrived the angle, framing, focus and lighting. More direct and realistic are the images from the many Print Club photo-sticker machines everywhere - digital cameras on every corner. Simply lifting the background curtain enables the machine to capture an image of its surroundings. Found cameras from the streets of Osaka, Kyoto and Seoul, capturing images of their local areas directly, like a bamboo brush manifesting an image of bamboo. In this way, subject and medium, content and context become one, and my role has become seeing an opportunity, pushing a button, and allowing the subject to express itself, as it is.
When a photo-sticker machine is found situated in front of a mirror, this is a rare opportunity to lift the curtain and allow the machine to photograph itself photographing itself, and create self-portraits of the artist in action showing us how it's done. Subject and medium, artwork and artist, content and context are collapsed into one.
Desiring to complete the series in antisipation of leaving Japan after three years of constant effort led to images of my escaping the machines.
But why even lift the curtain? Emptiness is best expressed with nothing there - no subject. But then the beauty of many empty curtains becomes the subject. One curtain alone says it all: finale.