Shinichi Maruyama

Kusho #1

Kusho #2

Kusho #5

Kusho #8

Kusho #9

Kusho #10

Kusho #11

Kusho #17

Kusho #18

About Shinichi Maruyama

Photography has always been a part of Shinichi Maruyama’s life. Born 1968 in Nagano Japan, he started photographing the mountainous terrain surrounding his own home city.

At Chiba University, he majored in image engineering where he studied emulsion and learned to hone his passion for photography.

After graduating, he began his professional career in 1992 at Amana Japan, one of the largest commercial photographic agencies in the world. Access to the latest equipment, and unlimited use of film development labs, allowed him to build a massive repetoire of commercial images. From 1994 onward, he spent 4 years as a freelance photographer, developing his own unique style, and beginning his documentary photographic studies of Tibet.

He would go on to work for Hakuhodo Photo Creative in 1998, producing innovative advertising campaigns, and with access to their latest high-speed strobe equipment, began to develop a fascination for liquid and motion imagery.

Upon leaving Hakuhodo, Shinichi began a deeply introspective, artistic period. He travelled frequently to Tibet, to complete two photography books about the Spiti Valley region, The Spiti Valley, and Spiti.

In 2003 he moved to New York City and began work on what would become his Kusho series. It is a stunning abstract collection made with sumi calligraphy ink flying in mid-air. The images saw much success and positive review in Paris Photo, Art Basel in Switzerland, and the New York Armory Show and led him to hold a show at Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York.

At present, he has just released the latest art series GARDENS and continues to work on new artwork in New York.

Artist statement

On Kusho

As a young student, I often wrote Chinese characters in sumi ink. I loved the nervous, precarious feeling of sitting before an empty white page, the moment just before my brush touched the paper. I was always excited to see the unique result of each new brushing.

Once your brush touches the paper, you must finish the character.  You have one chance. It can never be repeated or duplicated. You must commit your full attention and being to each stroke. Liquids, like ink, are elusive by nature. As sumi ink finds its own path through the paper grain, liquid finds its unique path as it moves through air.

Remembering those childhood moments of ink and empty page, I fashioned a large ‘brush’ and bucket of ink. I get the same feeling, a precarious, nervous excitement, as I stand before the empty studio space. Each stroke is unique, ephemeral. I can never copy or recreate them. I know something fantastic is happening, “a decisive moment”, but I can’t fully understand the event until I look at these captured afterimages. These paintings in the sky.

Shinichi Maruyama’s Website

Shinichi Maruyama at Bruce Silverstein Gallery

Shinichi Maruyama’s next show Gardens is at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery until April 2nd, 2011 and beginning March 23rd until the end of the 2010-2011 season in the lobby of Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall.