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Kimiko Yoshida

Bio

Kimiko Yoshida was born in 1963 in Tokyo, and lives and works in Paris, Venice and Tokyo. Her photographic work focuses primarily on self-portraits with elaborate costumes that create an intense dialogue with minimalist, baroque, anthropological, art historical and ethnographic elements.

She studied at Chuo University in Tokyo (1986); the Tokyo College of Photography (1995); then, after relocating to France in 1995, at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles (1996) and the Studio National des Arts Contemporaines in Le Fresnoy, France (1999). Since the beginning of her career, her self-portraits have been the sublimation of her own childhood marked by female identity, abandonment and wandering. In the series Marry Me (2003), she presents herself as a bride in wildly contrasting cultural identities, evoking legends, dreams, and memories. Her series Paintings (2010), she wears eclectic clothing found in the Paco Rabanne archives and painted her face in monochromatic colors while in fact referencing famous painters from Western art history as diverse as Caravaggio, Velasquez, Picasso and Warhol. Her beautiful photographs-classical in manner and rich in color-intentionally shock the viewer with their intensity and directness. She has held solo shows in prestigious international institutions  including at the Israel Museum (2006), Jerusalem; The Grand Palais (2006, 2007, 2011), Paris; Museum Das Artes-Casa Das Mudas (2007), Madeira, Portugal; Xin Dong Cheng Space for Contemporary Art (2008), Beijing; Maison Européenne de la Photographie (2010) Paris; Ruarts Gallery (2011), Moscow; Musée du Pavillon de Vendôme-Dobler (2012); Aix-en-Provence; Katara Arts Centre (2012), Doha; Galerie Tanit (2013), Beirut; Fushimi Castle (2015), Kyoto; Musée du Masque (2016), Binche, Belgium; Embassy of Japan (2016), Brussels; Museo del Vetro (2016-2017), Murano. She won First Prize in the “Self-Portrait” category at the International Photography Awards (2005), New York, and the Prix de l’Ermitage (2015), Maison de la Photographie, Paris.

Blown Glass Symbols, 2009

Glass, c-print mounted in aluminum and acryl

28 x 28 cm each

Glasstress Stockholm

Kimiko Yoshida - Blown Glass Symbols
Kimiko Yoshida - Blown Glass Symbols
Kimiko Yoshida - Blown Glass Symbols
Tombeau. Self-portrait (after Cardinal Barberini’s Epitaph, Rome, 1646), 2005

Series of 18 self-portraits with Murano glass letters, life-size C-prints mounted on aluminum and acrylic

28 x 28 cm each

Glasstress 2009

Kimiko Yoshida - Tombeau. Self Portrait
Kimiko Yoshida - Tombeau. Self Portrait