Clear oceans, deep blue sky, land abundant with green, like tourism adverts, unbelievably beautiful photos of "real" scenes are so flooded with stereotypical images we are so used to seeing, that in fact when we are confronted by great nature itself, observed through our existing sense of vision, we are led to feel ill at ease.

Masanori Ikeda's photos of water weed tanks, are works which may be positioned in opposition to this. The water tank is photographed as a water tank and the water weeds bear witness to the lack of exaggeration of scale. The scene is like the naive drawing of a child, with the colourful play of light failing to attain an awesome-like image. This diorama of awkwardness reflects Ikeda's perspective of "Idealistic Nature/Landscape of Dreams".

When I first saw the water weed tank photos I discovered, contrary to my expectation, that the fabrication of Ikeda's work is a different "nature". It is not as if the scene of nature has not been reconstructed in a "realistic" way. There is no surprising trickery, and there are no eye boggling fish swimming around either. But what Ikeda depicts is plainly an ideal of great bright nature. Such a scene does not really exist in the natural world, but through the two artificial processes of constructing a diorama and taking a photograph Ikeda depicts another reality.

And it is with this that I greatly anticipate what direction of development "DOUBLE NATURE" will take upon this dichotic balance.

About the Artist:

Masanori Ikeda
Photographer
Born 1978, Yokohama.
In 1999 he established the alternative space "Dragged Out Studio". From 2003 he began the portrait series "Holiday Photograph Museum". In 2006 he founded the independent studio "Yukai", moving to Bakurocho in 2010. He has held numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout out Japan and internationally. He is also active as the artist unit "Ikeda Midori" with Midori Mitamura.

Art Director/ Curator: Atsuki Kikuchi