KANA KAWANISHI PHOTOGRAPHY is pleased to present Yoshiki Hase Solo Exhibition ENA, from Saturday, September 8th, 2018. ENA is a series photographed by Hase with a 4x5 film view camera, in the town of Ena, located in the southern part of Gifu Prefecture. Purely following his own instinct, Hase photographed the residents of Ena within its natural landscape. During the seven years from 2010 until 2016, Hase commuted to Ena to complete the series, and in May 2018, the works were published as an art book titled ENA (YUKAI HANDS PUBLISHING, 2018).

Hase first visited Ena as member of a film shooting crew. On this occasion, he learned that the place enshrined the amnion which once encapsulated the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, and also, that it was coincidentally the birthplace of his own father. Hase’s impression towards Ena was a “typical countryside in the mountains of Japan,” but it was also true that he found himself fascinated by the picturesque beauty in its daily life, and decided to return back with his large format view camera to shoot his own artwork.

Mountains, lakes, rice fields, old houses, and factories—Hase brought his large-format camera to various places his instinct detected, and asked people who daily reside at the site to model in the photos, and captured them with minimum posing directions. The works of ENA may resemble the works of Gregory Crewdson, renowned of the large-scale set-up photography taken with a massive crew, however, one would notice that Hase’s works connote various enchantments that are unique to his series, such as the maximized interactive relationships between the site and the model, or the fact that ordinary citizens who live and work at the place are actually situated in the photographs.

Allegorical aesthetics as though a fairytale; accidental elements that occurred during the photo sessions; and documentary values of photographing people who reside in the Japanese town—ENA is a series in which signifies a diverse range of aspects. We highly look forward to introducing the new body of work by Yoshiki Hase, consolidating the commuting and photographing over seven years, after four years since the last occasion we showcased his works.