Imura art gallery kyoto is very pleased to present the solo exhibition of Vanessa FRANKLIN "Bleu"(1F) and Hiroko Miyakoshi "LACY" (2F) for KYOTO GRAPHIE international photography festival.

French photographer Vanessa Franklin has been living in Japan since January 2011. Vanessa Franklin celebrates the beauty of life, of each and every aspect of life, but also shows its fragility. The contrasts created by the blue sheets, the pink hair, against the more subdued palette of Japanese cities, or against the typical reds of religious architecture and the soft clouds of seasonal blossoms, allow for visually stunning pictures, between flamboyance and softness.

The artist  twists the stereotypes of fashion and commercial photography in order to transcend them. She seems to bend the notions of luxury and brands by transforming a cheap and purely practical object into an elegant outfit, by recycling as a fashion item a piece of plastic canvas whose usual utilisations are rather unglamorous. The models could be princesses in a fairy tale, with their Cinderella-like dresses which will turn back to their previous state of rags after the shooting. In so playing with the codes of fashion and of the culture of advertisement, Vanessa Franklin gently mocks her own world ? the world of a fashion and advertising photographer - but firmly reminds us that beauty can lie within the most mundane of things.

The images are imbued with a natural and restraint elegance, a tranquil, seductive and strictly ironic assurance, which are the very definition of iki, an essential concept of Edo's aesthetics. Above the numerous cliches associated with Japan, Vanessa Franklin has attempted to grasp the souls of these beautiful country and people, and enriched her own journey with the presents offered by her Japanese friends. More than anything, the blue sheet series is a chance encounter, a dialogue, between a young French woman and her Japanese counterparts, between an individual and a different culture.

*image (left)
© Vanessa Franklin
courtesy of the artist and Imura Art Gallery