Japanese photographer Yamamoto Masao creates small and intimate images focused on the relationship of humanity to the natural world, and to broader metaphysical states. The works in the CPI collection come from four series — A Box of Ku, Nakazora, KAWA=FLOW and Bonsai — each of which has a specific theme.
Yamamoto's works have been described as “visual haiku” for their ability to evoke a sense of harmony between various elements: a cat posing next to flower pots, swans sleeping in the snow, and snow monkeys soaking in hot springs. In some photographs, time itself is a medium, its expression realized by the period of waiting to take the shot.
For Yamamoto, photography has strong connections to the art of bonsai, which involves crafting a miniaturized version of the natural world as a means of evoking a larger reality. In the image N°4009, the artist has produced an effect that makes a bonsai tree glow. This aura symbolizes the intensity of the tree’s existence, as well as its longevity. As Yamamoto has said, “Famous bonsais may be hundreds or thousands of years old. Perhaps the time it has withstood gives the tree a kind of aura. And perhaps I continue to photograph bonsais to find out why they have such an effect.”
