Selecting judge: Frits Gierstberg

The language the artist is using here is very consistent. These works could function in the style of a documentary of everyday life or natural scenery. There are countless photos of cities and nature, particularly nature. But the artist has provided an invigoratingly fresh take on what are familiar settings. The works are not just critiques; they are extremely open in a way that sets them apart from photographs seen in the past with similar stylings. In my view, this work — although it is ‘Japanese' in the clichéd sense of subtlety, poetic sensibility — i.e., poems in the midst of the ordinary — and although its language is neither new nor radical — deserves to be recognized for holding true to the artist's own voice.