GALLERY

Karen Sato

“ dappigara ”

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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 I think this withdrawn sensitivity, this gloominess, is very raw in the pieces.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.

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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)
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2010Grand Prize

Karen Sato

dappigara

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