Syoin Kajii

Born in Niigata, Japan, Kajii currently lives and works as a artist and Buddhist monk on Sado Island.

Syion Kajii, graduated from Koyasan University in Mikkyo, in esoteric Buddhism, in 1999. He has been taking photographs since the age of 16, and after having served his Buddhist apprenticeship at Koyasan (Mt. Koya) from 1995 to 1999, Kajii travelled around the world, to places such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, and the U.K. taking pictures. While working as a monk of the Singon sect in Sado Island, he has been actively working as a photographer. In 2004 he was awarded the 1st FOIL Award for his series of pictures in which he took a succession of waves on a shore in Sado. Following the FOIL Award, he published his first photo book NAMI and was awarded the Rookie of the Year 2005 by The Photographic Society of Japan for this overwhelmingly energetic and spiritual book. Another of his projects consists of photographing rural places suffering from serious depopulation, which was published as Marginal Village in 2009, for which he was awarded The Gotoh Memorial Foundation prize. In 2010 Kajii published his second book KAWA (river) showing breathtaking images of rivers from his extensive travels around the world. His newest work TSUKI (moon/month), was produced in 2011, concurrently with his homonymous video work for the exhibition “Mysticism – Longing for the Absolute” at the Museum Rietberg.

Submitted by CHRISTOPHE GUYE GALERIE