A photographer "Yasuo Kiyonga" attempts to capture the origins of Japan.

Yasuo Kiyonaga, who constantly attempts to produce images that have never been seen before, carries on the Japanese photographic tradition while the crossroad between the real and unreal by using unique expressions.

The Sprit of the Forest series is his original artwork which deals with the motif of the deep Japanese forest, made up trees that are believe to house a myriad of deities. By manipulating the pictures at the time they were developed, Kiyonaga created 8X10-inch images in which emulsion appears to erode the trees, and the photographic expression are inadvertently changed into the substances.

In the series “Winter Wonderland”, he tried to capture Japanese deep snow forest which he also has been photographing for many years. He manipulated some of the images, and directly printed on oak wood to express the softly scenery rising by the unique coloring condition which can not be obtained by paper prints.

It like a magic, the colorful autumn landscape which had been there before was covered with snow and makes colorless and emphasis of the trees' shadows.

His recnent printing on wood series is Piece of Memories. This work also prints on large vertically long wood, and it is a mechanism to complete one piece of photograph by arranging five boards.

He expressed a fragmentary image when he imagined the past with the idea of dividing a picture. It will invite you to a memorable trip to an old-fashioned "somewhere" of Japanese village forest.  I believe that you will experience a unique immersive feeling in the wood scents, the big scales, the spacious arrangements.