Daisuke Nakashima
“ soshitsu-metoronom ”
2007Co-Grand Prize
ARTIST STATEMENT
soshitsu-metoronom
With these photographs, I tried to capture the contradiction that while we may forget another person almost before we realize it, we want that other person to remember us forever. Until a friend of mine died, I wasn’t even really aware that he was alive. When the train just ahead of the one I was on derailed and crashed into an apartment block, I remembered that people besides me were also alive. I realized that there is a gap between individual pulses.
Yet, at the moment I wanted to push the shutter, the subject closed his eyes, so I decided to just keep pressing the shutter until he opened his eyes again. The person I loved yesterday will at some point forget me, and I will forget them. So I accept that I will suffer loss, and resolve just to love that gap.
I don’t want to take pictures of scenes that I have just seen. I want to take pictures of scenes that I want to see from now. Everything disappears at some point, so I use photography to create a daily life with someone.
Entries form: Book format, inkjet prints (A3 size), 58 prints
Selecting judge: Kotaro Iizawa
Although things like the method of composition still leave something to be desired, I think that his way of looking at things and trimming his photographs demonstrates an innate talent that cannot be imitated by others. In particular, his eye for looking at men, who are the same sex as him, was unique: cool yet full of emotion. It somehow arouses a lot of empathy.
He also has a talent for keeping his pictures simple. Young photographers tend to throw anything and everything into their pictures, but this photographer skillfully focuses on what he wants to say, and knows precisely how to minimize noise.
The photographs are arranged a bit too haphazardly, but if he wants to exhibit them he should be able to fix that without too much effort. I think he’s got a bright future ahead of him.
PROFILE
Daisuke Nakashima
Born in 1983 in Osaka Prefecture. Studied cognitive psychology at a college and concurrently learned photography at a professional school.
Received the Canon New Cosmos of Photography Co-Grand Prize in 2007 and Visual Arts Photo Award Grand Prize in 2008.
Published the photobook each other (Seigensha Art Publishing, Inc.) in 2008.
My major solo exhibitions include each other, at Visual Arts Gallery, Tokyo, 2008, IMAGE NO KANSHOKU | taken with iPhone, at ITOCHU AOYAMA ART SQUARE, Tokyo, 2016.
My major group exhibitions include Saikin no koto (RECENTLY), at Gallery Naruyama, Tokyo, 2009, Internalized World: Contemporary Japanese Photography, at Vilnius Graphic Art Centre’s gallery, Lithuania, 2011, SHOWCASE #1 curated by Minoru Shimizu, at eN arts, Kyoto, 2012, and showcase #4 curated by Minoru Shimizu, at eNarts, Kyoto, 2015, and more.
| 1983 | Born in Osaka Prefecture |
| 2006 | Graduated with a degree in industrial psychology from Kansai University, Faculty of Sociology Won Judge’s Special Prize in the Mio Photo Awards (selecting judge: Michiko Kasahara, Chief Curator, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography) |
| 2007 | Completes a night-school course in photography at Visual Arts College Osaka Received an Excellence Award at the 30th New Cosmos of Photography (selected by Kotaro Iizuka) and won the Co-Grand Prize at the New Cosmos of Photography 2007 Exhibition |
| (At the time of 2007) | |
2007Co-Grand Prize