Shimakage
Shiraishi Chieko
Negative Gallery
English and Korean
Softcover
Edition 133/150
16 pages
150 x 200 mm
2023
Shiraishi Chieko’s Shimakage is a photographic journey into Chieko’s memory, exploring her reflections, experiences and fascination with the many small outer islands which surround Japan. Shimakage, literally translated as ‘Island Shadow’, brings together varying images taken from Japan’s surrounding islands and coastal areas such as Sakushima, Shingu and Kihoku Mie. The resulting images are gelatin silver prints which utilise an old retouching technique known as ‘zokin-gake’ or ‘rag-wiping’, which was previously popular amongst amateur photographers in Japan during the 1920s and 30s. As a result, the images beautifully evoke a faded memory; the landscapes appear and disappear within the image, embodying ‘faint signals’ from the photographer’s own memory, standing as faint silhouettes against the backdrop of an obscured memory.
(Source: https://www.shashasha.co/en/book/shimakage)
About the Artist
Shiraishi Chieko was born in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. She studied photography and darkroom techniques at a workshop given in Funabashi-shi, Chiba Prefecture, by Katsuhito Nakazato and Kazuo Kitai. Since 1998, she has presented some twenty solo exhibitions, in Japan, Italy, and in France. She also participated in the Tbilsi Photo Festival in 2016. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts and the Ashikaga Museum of Art.
https://www.instagram.com/chieko.shiraishi
(Source: https://mindseye.fr/artists/chieko-shiraishi)
About the Publisher
Negative Gallery is a publisher based in Busan, South Korea.
