#KENSUKE KOIKE

[las-microfisuras]

Kensuke Koike

Pendant

[thinkingimages]

No More, No Less 21 © Kensuke Koike & Thomas Sauvin

[cosmonautroger]

Kensuke Koike

[bobbole]

Kensuke Koike, Surrounded by Nudes

Cotton string on vintage postcard

[jnjo]

Kensuke Koike

[bearly-hyuman]

artist: Kensuke Koike

[gacougnol]

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A post shared by Kensuke Koike 小池健輔 (@kensukekoike)

Kensuke Koike

[sugarsnappeases]

everyone stop what you’re doing and ponder lily evans w me. i’ve been rotating this quote for the last two months:

i’ve been thinking about it in relation to the way that lily is portrayed both within the books and within the fandom. the way she’s dismembered, split into all these different pieces (her green eyes, the power of her motherly love, her intelligence etc etc) and each of these pieces is exalted, nigh on idolised even. the way this means that the sum of these parts is something that is simultaneously more and less than a woman.

she’s a mother, she’s a wife, she’s a martyr, she’s a muggleborn, she’s head girl, she’s a sister, she’s a witch. she’s all of these things to the absolute utmost - every facet of her, every segment into which she’s cut, is put on a pedestal, she is the epitome of all of these separate things, and because of this she can never be Real. Tangible. Whole.

it’s like this:

over their dead bodies - kensuke koike

she’s more than a woman bc she’s made up of all these individually flawless parts of different women that have been projected onto her…. but she’s less than a woman for the same reason. she’s never complete. she’s a near-deity. she’s a fantasy. she’s everywhere and nowhere in the narrative. she’s dead. she’s alive in all these segments. she’s a fraction of a whole. she’s like trying to do a brand-new puzzle that’s still missing a good third of the pieces. she’s a ‘beautiful monster composed of every individual perfection.’

link to article in which i encountered the quote & link to article from which the quote originates (they’re both beautiful jstor articles about bestie petrarch and the way he portrays laura. haven’t acc read the second one (although i plan to soon!!) but the vickers article has enraptured me to an insane degree so if anyone’s interested i really recommend. might not make much sense if you haven’t read the rvf, but they’re so so interesting!!)

[kolajmag]

COLLAGE ON VIEW

Fragmented Lucidity

The Art of Collage and Photomontage at Rosegallery in Santa Monica, California, USA, 9 December 2023-13 January 2024. "Fragmented Lucidity" is a presentation of works by Katrien De Blauwer, Ken Graves, and Kensuke Koike. The opening of "Fragmented Lucidity" will also be hosted in collaboration with Luhz Press, which is debuting with The Meaning of Gravity, the first monograph of collage works by Ken Graves. Read More

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Kolaj Magazine, a full color, print magazine, exists to show how the world of collage is rich, layered, and thick with complexity. By remixing history and culture, collage artists forge new thinking. To understand collage is to reshape one's thinking of art history and redefine the canon of visual culture that informs the present.

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[no-soy-alex]

La fotografía puede convertirse en un objeto artístico?

Hace muchos años me planteaba esa idea para una posible tesis (jamás sucedió), quería tratar de demostrar que la intervención de una fotografía podría ampliar el contenido de la misma.

Tomando como inspiración al artista japonés Kensuke Koike decidí intervenir una vieja fotografía de mi infancia, de una época en la que descubrí uno de los deportes que más me han marcado, me refiero a la lucha libre.

La intervención es una clara referencia a la máscara del Huracán Ramírez, tratando de representar la ilusión de aquel niño que alguna vez quiso ser un luchador.

Dicho diseño ayudo a ampliar el significado de la misma foto?

La verdad es que no lo sé, pero me deja pensando en todas esas máscaras que alguna vez llevamos de niños, esos sueños e ilusiones que en ocasiones reprimimos.

[ardn632harrisonwatts]

Statement

Having a grandfather who was the chief photographer for the New Zealand Herald, I grew up with a firm belief that the media and more specifically, the photograph, were undeniable manifestations of the truth. Being young and naive, we tend to believe what we are told and accept what we see. However, as we grow older and begin to make our own political choices and pick and choose what media we wish to consume and believe, we have no choice but to wonder if there is any fabrication to what we are seeing. My Grandfather is gone and so are the days of trusting what we see, read, and hear which begs the question, where does the photographer fit in all this?

In the first half of this semester, we explored the history of manipulation in image making and photography considering the role of a photographer in a modern post-truth society. In my first project, I explored surrealism in photo manipulation as a means for expression as I found that surrealist imagery like the common use of the eye was a powerful vessel for expressing one's desire to reside in a dream-like world. For this project, I wanted to stick with surrealism but with a more grounded approach. My project “The Glass Woman” speaks to how we as humans try to hide and change what makes us feel insecure in search of confidence and comfort. In my photo series, I am trying to show that no matter how you try to hide or change what you look like and how you are perceived, the projected facade is seen through and will never change who you are. 

In the early stages of this project, I was heavily inspired by Dora Maar. Dora was one of the early pioneers of the surrealism movement as she created manipulated compositions through analogue collage methods cutting together different images to create seamless and realistic compositions. Although this may seem like standard procedure for anyone who knows the arts, in the 40s, Dora’s work was extremely influential and has certainly left an impact on surrealism and photography as a whole. Evidence of Dora’s impact can still be seen in the current day with the likes of Kensuke Koike. Koike, like Dora, works mostly in analog using antique imagery to create surrealist portrait compositions. In my opinion, Kensuke’s most successful works are the ones that feature a human portrait that has been manipulated to resemble 3D geometric shapes. It is these works that most informed my outcome in this project, “The Glass Woman,” with Kensuke's work pushing me to explore portraiture as a vessel to tell my surrealist story. 

Though both Kensuke and Dora use photo manipulation as a vessel for artistic expression, this is sadly not the case with many practitioners and media outlets in our modern post-truth society. This is something that Jonas Bendikson explored in his book, “The Book of Veles.” Bendikson used computer graphics to generate 3D characters that he then manipulated into his images to tell a fabricated story about the city of Veles. Though Bendikson hid clues in the book about its fraudulent imagery and had no intention of selling it as truth, he was shocked to find that no one questioned its validity due to his reputation as a photojournalist. 

Though I struggled with finding my footing in the second project, I found my calling with portrait photography shooting digitally to allow for a quick import into Photoshop which is a comfortable space for me to manipulate images. Though I am proud of my outcome and think I have done a good job using portraiture to express my chosen message about our glass personas, I would’ve liked to shoot in the studio with the studio camera equipment but as I did not have the time for this assignment, I will look forward to doing it next time. 

In my three compositions, I explore small and common ways that we as humans may alter ourselves to change the way we are perceived. Though the gestures I have chosen to capture in the work; wearing glasses, applying lip gloss, and covering the face are all small and inconsequential, they are symbolic of a wider human need to control and protect our self-image and the way we are perceived. In the surrealism genre, they envision a dream-like world created from the subconscious. In a modern society, we too dream of a world where we can protect ourselves from the pain of judgment, so we manipulate our self-image. However, this projection of our persona is not a factual representation of who we are. We are all made of glass.

[worldsandemanations]

Cotton string on vintage postcard, Kensuke Koike, 2014

[emilynns]

4/3/24 Tutor and Peer feedback

Today I got more feedback from my tutor and peers, I showed past references and some photographic experimentations such as:

These photo edits were inspired by Caleb Cole and are the beginning of my experimentation with distorting childhood images. I like how haunting they feel especially with some of the photos which have a more blurred and halo effect linking to ghostlike images and hauntology. I prefer the background being desaturated to black and white as I feel like it's more haunting to have a slight absence of colour than none at all. Feedback Recieved:

-Laser Cutting -Kara Walker -Seeing them physically -Kensuke Koike