Hiroshi OSAKA • 6 juin - 30 juin 2001

en collaboration avec la galerie Picture Photo Space, Japon

"Venus & Vegetals"

Il y a dans le travail des nus d'Osaka Hiroshi aucune distinction entre le corps de ses modèles et le cadre. Le corps se fond avec l’image et les contours manquent comme s’ils avaient été effacés. Parfois les corps de ses sujets semblent couverts de couche mince d'eau, donnant l'aspect d'une membrane semi-transparente. Dans l'un ou l'autre cas, le rendu est la chair molle fondue, cela apparaît toujours d'une manière obsédante dans son travail.

Ce traitement du corps, est totalement contraire aux idéaux de la nudité occidentale. Dans la tradition esthétique occidentale, le corps est généralement fixé par l'artiste comme objet ferme.

L'artiste lui-même utilise fréquemment des mots tels que " union ", " fusion ", et " androgine " car pour lui tous les éléments de la composition se fondent ensemble pour s’unifier.

Bien que " risqué " ces nus n’ont rien d’agressifs. Il y transparait plutôt une sérénité érotique.

There is in Osaka Hirosh’s nude work a distinctive identity. In many instances, there is no distinction betweem the body of his models and their surroundigs. The body melts with the background of the picture, its outlines are missing as if it had been fluidified. Sometimes the bodies of his subjects seem covered with a thin layer of water, giving the appearance of a semi-transparent membrane. In either case, the element of yielding, soft flesh melted with its surroundings always obsessively appears in his work.

This treatment of the body, I imagine, is totally contrary to the ideals of Western nude. In the Western tradition, the body is generally fixed by the artist as an unyielding object. Assuming this is an attempr to maintain the properties of the human body thought of as " ideal " since Greek and Roman times, even when there seems like there may be a fresh touch of eroticism, on can’t avoid getting the impression that a nude is just " a lump of flesj " fixed in a set location. Even if ever so slightly, there exists a clear borderline betweek the subject and its surroundings.

From this perpective, Osaka Hiroshi’s nudes are made with standards entirely different from those of Western aesthetic tradition. The artist himself frequently uses words such as " union ", " fusion ", and " androgyny " from the norm : components in his composition melt together and seem to unify. For example, the " unifications " sensation present in Osaka’s " Vegétal " series, highlighting plants, once again makes an appearance in his " Venus " series. There seems to be the possibility of mutual exchange between the female figure and the plants – what could be termed an equation between Woman and Flora. In the world of Osaka’s work, the boundaries between the artist and his subjects, male and female, man and other living things, and living things and objects ambiguously dissolve into each other.

One could say that his ability to embrace without limitation the sensation of fusion is an aspect of a thoroughly Eastern sensibility. Of course, it is dangerous to compare and put in contrast Western and Eastern attitudes so easily, but looking at Osaka’s pictures, one is tempted to see in them the birth of Eastern Venus, based on aesthetic standars entirely different from Western tradition . Regardless of how risqué his picture of posed nudes may be, they don’t run to aggressive eroticism ; rather, they emanate a kind of satisfaction found in a serenity of acceptance. This is probably because the pictures demonstrate his Eastern aesthetics and appreciation for nature.

Osaka Hiroshi a fait ses débuts en 1983 avec une série de photographies de forêts intitulé" The Land of the Holy " (symbolisant le ventre de la mère) . En photographiant des nus il poursuit ses tentatives d’unifier son thème avec la foret symbole de la mère.
Osaka Hiroshi made his debut with " the Land of the Holy ", 1983, a series which he photographed with a forest backdrop. Osaka has preserved his vision since he began photographing nudes in that dark forest (symbolic of a mother’s womb), where his artistic consciousness was liberated in the shados. Using nudes as his means, Osaka continues his attempts to unify his theme with the symbolic mother forest.
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