Yukiko Shimizu

My work emerges from an exploration of memory, time, nature, and the presence of emotions that cannot be seen.

The origins of my life as a photographer lie in the figure of my grandfather, whom I watched as a child. He loved photography so deeply that his passion led him to build his own photographic studio, and he continued to take photographs while travelling around the world. I admired the care with which he handled his camera, and before I knew it, I too had begun to pick one up naturally.

Growing up between different places and cultures, I sometimes struggled with changes in language and environment, and with a sense of losing where I belonged. Amid these experiences, my grandparents’ home in Tokyo felt like another world. Handmade stone paths and steps led deep into the garden, while magnificent old trees, shaped by the passage of many years, spread their branches across the sky. The textures of trees and earth, light falling into the garden, the sound of the wind, the changing seasons—the time I spent there remains deeply within me.

Landscapes and sounds encountered in childhood can return unexpectedly after many years. A certain light, the scent of the wind, a melody from a distant memory. Forgotten time suddenly rises into the present, and points once separated between past and present quietly reconnect. For me, memory is not something confined to the past; through landscape, light, sound, scent, and bodily sensation, it re-emerges in new forms.

Encountering different cultures and values, my renewed relationship with Japanese nature and spiritual traditions brought a profound shift in my perception. I was deeply moved by a sensibility that finds the sacred within nature and perceives a presence of life in all things. Until then, my photographic practice had existed largely in a monochrome world. Yet through encounters with the sublime power of nature, it felt as though lost colours suddenly returned, while sound itself began to rise alongside them.

The world regained its colour, and I began to hear sound again.

That experience led me toward music and composition, and toward forms of expression where moving image and sound intersect. Photography, moving image, music, and technology are not separate practices for me. They are different points of entry into memories, emotions, and layers of time that cannot be fully expressed through words.

Memory does not preserve everything in a clear and fixed form. Some things are lost, some change shape, and some return unexpectedly after many years. The blurring, layering, reflections, intense light, and deep shadows that appear in my photographs are closely connected to this uncertainty—to the way memory shifts through time, becomes fragmented, and transforms as it connects with other sensations.

When I photograph, I often remain in one place for a long time. Sometimes I stand there before dawn, while it is still dark, waiting for the light to appear. Rather than seeking an immediate answer, I simply wait as the landscape gradually changes and what had been invisible begins to reveal itself.

Forms emerge from darkness; light gives rise to colour; water and trees change their expressions. Or, conversely, light slowly gives way to darkness. I am equally drawn to the stillness and fragility of those moments.

We cannot see time that has already passed. Yet in things shaped by many years, in shifting light, and in landscapes that continue to change, we can sometimes sense its traces.

At the same time, when I turn toward human experience and history, questions arise: What do we remember? What do we forget? What do we pass on to future generations? Even as times change and societies advance, why do human beings continue to repeat conflict and war? Beyond individual memory, what remains through the course of history, what is lost, and what continues to be passed on in altered forms?

For me, making art is a way of reconnecting times and emotions that have drifted apart, and of searching for a place where memory and the present meet.

Light, wind, seasons, and the emotions that arise within them never return in exactly the same form.

A singular moment encountered within the ceaseless movement of time.

I hope to continue attending to these once-in-a-lifetime encounters, and to preserve something of them through my work.

I studied photography at Parsons School of Design, researched nineteenth-century photographic processes at The Center for Alternative Photography, and participated in the Photography Residency Program at the School of Visual Arts. I studied computer music at UCLA Extension and composition at Berklee College of Music. At New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), I developed works bringing together moving image, music, and technology.

Tobi Art Fair, Eizendo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Seizan Gallery, Ginza, Tokyo, Japan
Daimaru Shinsaibashi Art Gallery, Osaka, Japan

Selected Group Exhibitions
The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Seibu Shibuya Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
The Center for Fine Art Photography, USA
Soho Photo Gallery, New York, USA

International Exhibitions & Art Fairs
Selected art fairs and international exhibitions in Paris, Dubai, and Taipei
International Peace Art Exhibition, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France
Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria

Awards
Shibayama Tetsuji Award
“Nihon no Bijutsu” Exhibition, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, Japan