Japan

Kenna’s Japanese landscapes are weightless and look like they are dancing buoyantly in midair. Mountains are not solidly stable on the earth, they look insecure, as if they could be blown away by a single breath. Trees look like they are about to walk off to another place. Islands floating in lakes look as if they could be drifting on waves.

Kenna has effortlessly realized the task of “photographs written in short poem form” which Japanese photographers starting with Shinzo Fukuhara have been trying to create for many years.

He has been reflective when others have been militant, romantic when others have been skeptical. Such isolation can starve all but the most independent of talents, but for these it can provide a sanctuary where visions can develop undisturbed. Kenna is one of these.

First Printing. Signed by the artist. Introduction by Kohtaro Iizawa.