KUNIE SUGIURA
b.1942 Nagoya, Japan

Kunie Sugiura's choosen medium is the photogram. Her images - the preserved shadows of flowers, creatures of land and sea, and even living beings - resonate with a sense of immediacy and living discovery, not unlike that which animates the works of the earliest photographers. At the same time, Suguira is the contemporary avatar of a long Japanese visual tradition grounded in the economical and haunting beauty of the silhouette. Her lush positive and negative renderings prompt reconsideration of her elemental medium as a vehicle of illusionism. By intentionally fixing the swirling photographic chemicals at the printing stage, the artist suspends her subjects in the moment of development, capturing a portrait of the natural world in its own timeless drama.

Sugiura holds a 1967 B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently lives and works in New York.

Artwork from top to bottom:

Untitled Positive, 1996
toned gelatin silver print

Stacks Tulip a7 Positive, 1996
toned gelatin silver print

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