Karen Sato
“ dappigara ”
2010Grand Prize
ARTIST STATEMENT
dappigara
Every single day, I repeat the same things, in the same places, and I grow older. Each day, I feel something important is being chipped away. Now and then, I wonder what still remains of me and it frightens me.
A self-portrait is the act of photographing yourself. But if I don't sense myself in the photos of myself, they can't be called self-portraits, can they. Even if the photos were a means of expressing that I had existed, the idea is just too absurd for me.
So what can I do to prove my existence, what can I do to convey myself to myself? I daresay the answer can be found in my mind.
This dappigara, the cast-off bits of myself, is my self-portrait.
Entries form: Book, 279mm x 356mm, 30 pages, color printing paper
Selecting judge: Minoru Shimizu
The artist wrote "hikikomori (social withdrawal)" as the work's intention. I think this withdrawn sensitivity, this gloominess, is very raw in the pieces. I felt a sense of love and hate-especially hate-towards things that are recorded, whether they are photographs, videos or photocopies. In our society full of copies, there is a sense of despair in the insignificance of one's existence. For example, the artist took a photograph, and then made it one step cheaper by photocopying it. The emptiness of our society in which one cannot feel one's existence-. I felt them to be genuinely bleak photographs.
PROFILE
Karen Sato
| 1983 | Born in Kanagawa Prefecture |
| 2009 | Completed a photography course at the Art and Architecture School, Waseda University |
| 2010 | Won the Grand Prize at the 2010 (33rd) New Cosmos of Photography (selected by Minoru Shimizu) |
Major Solo Exhibitions
| 2012 | cage (E&C Gallery, Fukui) |
| 2016 | I (Kanzan Gallery, Tokyo) |
| 2020 | I: Waves and Shadows (Fugensha, Tokyo) |
Major Group Exhibitions
| 2011 | internalized, the 3rd International Art Photography Festival IN FOCUS 2011 (Vilnius Graphic Art Centre Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania) |
| 2021 | visions in and out, Showcase #9 Curated by Minoru Shimuzu (eNarts, Kyoto) |
2010Grand Prize