Mie Morimoto “Single Plural”

August 3 mon - September 13 sun
Opening reception : August 3 18:00 - 22:00

Artist Mie Morimoto, presently living and working inTokyo, was born in 1974 in Okayama Prefecture and subsequently studied photography receiving her BA in 1997 from Tokyo Zokei University. Morimoto has particpated in numerous solo and group exhibitions including “Dream Banquet - History of Menus and Contemporary Artists”, Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo (2008), “VOCA ‘07”, Ueno Royal Museum of Art, Tokyo (2007). In 2007, MISAKO & ROSEN presented a two-person exhibition with Morimoto and photographer and filmmaker Ayako Mogi. In the fall of 2009, Morimoto will take part in “AOBA ART” in the city of Aoba, Yokohama.

While Morimoto has gained renown for work as a portraitist, her talent for creating subtle abstractions from representational imagery such as landscape and everyday objects is an important part of her practice. While Japanese photographers of a previous generation created works in which their very particular point of view was placed in the foreground, the strength of Morimoto’s images lie in her ability to present a photographic representation from a relatively neutral point of view. For example, Morimoto’s photographic series Slicer (2004), featured in her self-published photo-book of the same name, features images from varied sites and of objects whose relationship is not immediately apparent but which gains meaning when viewed as a series through the abstract language of photographic presentation.

In the present exhibition, Morimoto will exhibit a series of photographs entitled “Single Plural”.Over the course of a number of years, Morimoto has photographed continuously a single subject - her family. This practice has little concern with private emotions or relationships; but, rather, reflects Morimotoﾕs interest in the singular object of a family comprised of multiple parts - its members. Morimoto presents these images from various times, captured with various cameras together with apparently unrelated landscape imagery together on a single sheet of photographic paper realizing a new meaning. Hand-printed, Morimoto’s singular process results in the completion of a new photographic series.