BRIGHT MOMENTS

「BRIGHT MOMENTS 」
Signed
With 2 piece postcards

Book shop MARUKUMA
First ed 1000 copies
2015/12/03

Hardcover with dust jacket
210 x 303 mm
52 page
29 photo image

"Lingering Echoes of Blue"

The images of those nudes, appearing as though they would vanish into the pale wafting air at any moment, gives the impression of a realm disparate from reality. The intentionally blurred focus, creating an ambiguity in the curves of face and body, serves to abstract the nude figure. If we were to hypothesize the woman as symbolic of Eros, then we might also to view the blue as a metaphor for Thanatos. The skin, while submerged in that blue veil, is impervious to it, exuding instead its own presence as an icon of Life in a troubled world.

Peeling away that overlying layer of translucent skin, however, reveals the deep crimson of flesh and blood. All beings are born along with blood from the body of the mother. One might say that the color red teems with the life force. Skin enshrouds that extreme red and resists immersion into the realm of blue. Rather, the blue acts to amplify the Eros of the skin which envelops life.

Upon a shift of the gaze, interweaving photographs of the clouds and the waves, one becomes aware of the life we are bestowed when exposed to nature's magnanimity as well as its colossal perils. Quiet warmth exudes from these lights and colors, creating antagonism and harmony between the nude and the realm of blue. "Bright Moments" is surely the most erotic and vital of Seiji Kumagai's work to date.
There is a lingering tone to Kumagai's photographs. It hints at the scenery that lies beyond a photograph, inciting undiscovered images. "Bright Moments" is no exception. The photographs are proffered, entrusting its world-view to the viewer, demanding no particular conclusion. What is this moment radiating in this realm of blue? Perhaps one may glimpse here the complementary aspects of life and death, though it is not the simplistic concept of dualism. Seiji Kumagai's photographs continually stir visions of sceneries beyond the images, expressly because they do not seek to reach a clear conclusion.