Сатоми Сираи / Satomi Shirai
© Satomi Shirai - http://www.satomishirai.com/
Satomi Shirai was born in Tokyo and is presently living in New York. Lately her work has received international attention through participation at exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, amongst others.
Her latest work cycle, which Satomi calls "New York in my life" is about cramped domestic conditions, where the inhabitants of these mostly tiny places appear and disappear, vanish and seem to even lose their own identity. Often the people shown in Satomi's pictures can't be recognized. They are anonymous inhabitants of faceless living spaces and yet one can discover so many reminiscences in her images about national origins, cultural uniqueness and individual personal histories.
Of her work she says, "Since I started semi-immigrant life, I have experienced two worlds, with two different cultures and systems: that of Tokyo/Japan and that of New York. I came to perceive things in both of these worlds by comparing each one. In my work, the presence of certain objects questions my memories, and my understanding, or lack thereof, of the world I inhabit. I enjoy exploring environmental portraits with photography. I use architectural spaces and arrange a sitter's personal items that can tell more about his or her life, interests, identity, and so forth. I hope to document the sitter's state of mind with his or her facial expression and gestures in his or her living space, and try to create an experience of a moment that is in between everyday life and the extraordinary".
Satomi Shirai's images literally grow on you and one may realize that in a big city, no matter where on earth, we become also a reflection of the spaces we live in. Satomi's subtle humour that she transmits through her images, relieves her pictures from a potential “heaviness” and ultimately makes the viewer feel good, makes him or her almost a guest, thus absolving him or her from any suspicion of voyeurism.