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Matatabi. By Koji Onaka. Super Labo, 2012. |
"In Koji Onaka’s Matatabi, the viewer is bathed in a photographic silence unlike any other. Onaka has somehow managed to isolate himself through transience and illustrates this ghostly feeling through his camera. Figures are frozen in the distance, vehicles sit empty in the glow of the sun, and buildings feel like relics untouched by time.
When I look at Onaka’s photographs I can’t tell if he is leaving or staying, but I can tell that his photographs are uniquely his own. Onaka is comfortable being alone and knows how to step back and take the right photograph. The distance Onaka allows between camera and subject provide the viewer with a cinematic look into life in rural Japan.
One could easily confuse this work as bleak, sad, and empty. However, that would be a mistake. To me Onaka’s work in Matatabi is patient, quiet, and thoughtful. His use of color and composition creates a feeling of stability; comfortable silence as embodied by wooden houses on a hillside, yellowed grass at sunset, and the shadows of electric lines at midday. Rather than wallow in nostalgia, Matatabi serves as a guide to those seeking to learn the value of waiting. It’s the type of book one can look at over and over again, the type of book where each individual image has a story to tell, the type of book that reminds us that life isn’t a sprint but a marathon."—Christian Michael Filardo
Purchase Book
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| Matatabi. By Koji Onaka. Super Labo, 2012. |
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| Matatabi. By Koji Onaka. Super Labo, 2012. |
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