Yasuo Kiyonaga

Born in Kagawa, Japan in 1948.

In his photographic work, he interprets nature, villages, cities, humans and everything that is part of our lives in a surreal way. The subjects captured by his viewfinder are freed from their original context and given new forms and meanings.

His work is not limited to photography. Through his unique technique, Yasuo combines seemingly incompatible concepts such as photography and painting, nature and artifice, two-dimensional and three-dimensional, past and future, dream and reality, and sublimates them into art.

In 1966, strongly influenced by the two photographers Jean-Eugene Atget and Aaron Siskind, Yasuo Kionaga began to study photography.

In 1970, after finishing his studies at the professional school of photography, he started working for Recruit Co. as a photographer. In 1980, he left the company and established his own company, SHC, specializing in the planning and production of corporate communication content, which was little known at the time.

He focused on the field of photojournalism for a long period. He developed SHC to a company with 150 employees. Even today, this company remains a leader in the industry. Yasuo Kionaga focused on the field of corporate communication, in addition to his core business, he boldly takes on new challenges that are ahead of his time.

The ideas, critical thinking and decision-making skills he gained from these experiences have become the source of his creative activities.

In 1995, he resumed his career as an artist and opened a series of galleries in Tokyo, Kyoto, Paris, and online to exhibit his work and that of other photographers. He is the owner of the online Kyoto Museum of photography galleries, as well as the physical Kyoto Museum of photography Gallery Japanesque and Gallery Artisan Tokyo and Gallery Japanesque Paris.

He has published several books, including Leslie (1999), Spirit of Forest (2007), Paris Sketch (2012), the Japanese Beautiful Landscapes series (2008-), Japanese Tools (2015) and Ujo (Senses of Rain) (2016).

As part of his work, he photographs ancient capitals, rural villages in Japan and other countries and has compiled his photos into books.