Morimoto Mie

By Jorge Larrañaga

In photography there are directions and styles which are not limited solely to the theme, but which include the technique used, particularly when that influences the final colour. If in black and white photography it is principally the contrast which marks chromatic difference, in colour photography there is an exponential growth in chromatic possibilities. In spite of the infinite combinations, directions tend to impose themselves, and colour in photography is reduced to a monochrome which does not clash with the ruling fashion of the day, tarnishing its content.

In 2001, three books of photography by Kawauchi Rinko changed the direction of photography in Japan. His photographs, with pale colours and pastel tones, and an almost velvety texture, were best sellers among the general public and sparked off a style of photography that was rather naïf, devoid of content, visually pleasing and a little sugary. Kawauchi set the style, and hundreds of photographers have since copied his understated colours. The style is referred to by the adjective yasashi, which in Japanese can mean either simple or friendly, a semantic duality which encapsulates perfectly the character of these images. Naturally, commercial photography has adopted this style, and hundreds of businesses now use this type of gentle publicity, from famous fast food chains to car manufacturers.

It would seem at first glance that Morimoto Mie is just another of the photographers who has chosen to work in this particular style, sometimes described as feminine. There was not much contrast in her first photographs; chromatically they fell within the confines of faded, washed out colours. A range of colours which in the case of Morimoto gives her photographs a certain distance; the coldness of arctic colours with dull, worn metal tones. She first became known following the publication of her book of photographs, Studio Portrait (ed. Bijutsu, 2003). This portrayed the work of the famous artist Nara Yoshimoto, and was the result of six months spent in his studio. The tones of Nara’s paintings and sculptures bear a close resemblance to the colours in Morimoto’s first photographs. Pastel colours shape Nara’s personal universe of manga aesthetics, and Morimoto availed herself of them in order to discreetly document Nara’s working methodology from a perspective of respect, but also distance. Later came a commission for a book of photographs of the then almost unknown actress, Ito Misaki (ed. Little More, 2004). A book revealing rather more conventional aesthetics, which in some ways reflected the personality of the person portrayed: pale colours emphasising her innocent fragility. Ultimately, a book made to order.

Apart from her work commitments, that same year Morimoto presented her series of photographs, “Slicer”. An exhibition and a self-published book in which colour contrasts began to emerge from the mist of blurred colours, with somewhat understated tones but elegant and distinctive nevertheless. Unique colours far from the flat digitalisation which invades contemporary photography, springing from a chromatic palette exuding chemistry and fixatives. Later, she received another commission. A book of photographs of the artist and model Kimura Kaera (ed. Rockin’on, 2007), where Morimoto gave free rein to extravagant and forced colour combinations, very much in keeping with Kimura’s character. Although Morimoto left her signature on these photographs, opting for muted colours –an unusual option for chromatic exaltation– this commission represents an exception. Her other work, both for magazines and for galleries, continues to show the mixture of blurred colour which at times achieves a hardness never occasioned by the dizziness of exalted colour. These characteristics of her work have gained her recognition, and led to her first retrospective in the Graf Media GM gallery (Osaka, 2007).

In Morimoto’s work, colour is an element of aesthetic pleasure, which serves to define the landscape and characterise shape. Photographs of everyday scenes where the camera does not intrude, but rather limits its role to the narration of the lives of people unaware of the crystalline eye of the lens. Objects take on importance, posing in a rehearsed geometric choreography with icy indifference. There is no abuse of macro-photography as in the work of Kawauchi, nor optical tricks to distract our attention. Nearby details are blurred, just as they are when we try to focus on something less than three centimetres away from our eyes. For Morimoto, the camera is not an instrument to free us from our optical limitations, but another human eye with all its imperfections. Landscapes and shapes are shown as they are, from a perspective which only differs from that of the human eye by its rectangular frame. A gaze which flees from many of the labels and clichés of contemporary Japanese photography, and offers a universal, and at the same time intimate, perspective.

Jorge Larrañaga is an art critic and freelance photographer based in Tokyo (Japan).