Hiroh Kikai: Persona

Hiroh Kikai: Persona at Yancey Richardson Gallery. "...Trained as a philosopher, Kikai turned to photography after discovering the work of Diane Arbus and Walker Evans. Since then, Kikai has focused on two parallel bodies of work: the Asakusa Portraits, a series on individuals encountered in the Asakusa district, an urban backwater of Tokyo historically known as a center for popular entertainment; and Tokyo Labyrinth, a dreamlike protagonist-free portrait of the city itself. Both series are made in black and white with the same handheld square format Hasselblad given to Kikai by his university philosophy professor at the outset of his career. As Kikai explains, he sees his portraits and cityscapes as two sides of the same coin."