Ryūichi Ishikawa

is an Okinawan photographer. In his youth, Ishikawa suffered from depression, leading him to withdraw from mainstream society and turn towards the alternative, underground communities that later became frequent subjects in his photography. Ishikawa serendipitously found photography and photograms in his twenties which he used to document his immediate surroundings and visualize his emotions and dreams. As his practice developed under the guidance of his mentor Tetsushi Yuzaki, Ishikawa increasingly saw photography as a means to both communicate with the outside world and find meaning in life.

He rose to prominence in the contemporary Japanese art scene during the mid-2010s with his raw scenes of daily life in his hometown and straightforward portraits of people in Okinawa, including many of those on the fringes of society. For these photographs, Ishikawa received the esteemed Kimura Ihei award in 2014 and the Photographic Society of Japan Newcomer's Award the following year.

Ishikawa is primarily a self-taught photographer with a rapidly evolving, instinctual shooting practice. Over the course of his career, he has also experimented with genres such as abstraction, snapshot photography, landscape, and most recently, outdoor still life. Since 2015, Ishikawa has been traveling into the wilderness and photographing his expeditions.

Early life Ishikawa was born and raised in Ginowan, Okinawa. Ishikawa began competitive boxing as a junior high school student and dedicated his adolescent years to a strict and isolating training regiment. He became a nationally recognized youth boxer and won third place at the 2002 National Sports Festival held in Koichi. Despite his relative success, Ishikawa abandoned his boxing career upon entering Okinawa International University, where he studied in the department of Society and Regional Culture. His leave was motivated by concerns over the meager chances to sustain a living through boxing and the lack of career opportunities for those who left the profession. Ishikawa consequently suffered from depression throughout the remainder of his teens and early twenties due to his loss of direction in life and his inability to easily integrate back into 'normal' society after retiring.

Photography career Ishikawa first engaged with photography as a college student though he never received a formal arts education. His impromptu venture into photography started at the age of 20, when a thrift shop owner called out to Ishikawa on the street and offered him a heavily discounted Olympus Trip 35 camera. After being fired, Ishikawa moved between mainland Japan and Okinawa taking on seasonal work at automobile factories, host clubs, and bars, and spent his early twenties living very modestly in order to finance his photography. These images became the subject of his first two photobooks, SHIBA 踊る惑星 (2010) and しば正龍 女形の魅力 (2013).

Early introspective photographs: 2004–2008 Outside of his Shiba photographs, Ishikawa's early works primarily consisted of abstracted, introspective film photographs and works on photographic paper that were heavily manipulated in dark rooms. Ishikawa's move towards abstraction was born from an early realization that numerous non tangible circumstances (the time of day, the surroundings, one's emotions, what you ate that day, etc.) critically influenced one's perception of an image— when printing his photographs he noticed that the images he saw in the viewfinder when shooting seemed to differ once they were developed. In an attempt to more accurately convey the image, and associated emotions felt at the time of shooting, Ishikawa began investing time into transforming the image within the development process, such as compiling different photographs into a single print to make composite images. The resulting abstract works appeared to Ishikawa as unconscious manifestations of his childhood dreams.

Street snapshots: 2008–2010 After the completion of his ryu-graph series, Ishikawa was dissatisfied with the direction of his work and its singularly introspective focus. In the late 2000s, he decided to step away from the dark room and took up shooting again, this time with his camera directed at his immediate surroundings.

Portraits: 2010–2016 From 2010 onwards, Ishikawa's work shifted away from the turbulent snapshots taken of his friends in his early twenties once he began studying under the Okinawan photographer Tetsushi Yuzaki. With a suggestion by Yuzaki to take portraits of Okinawan youth, Ishikawa set out the next two years approaching numerous people on the street and taking their photographs. Ishikawa himself has acknowledged that both he and his work had grown noticeably outward focus under Yuzaki's tutelage.

In interviews, Ishikawa has generally steered away from offering any one explicit meaning to his photographs, although he concedes that there are socio-political tensions which one might read into his work. For publications such as A Grand Polyphony and okinawan portraits 2012-2016, Ishikawa wrote directly about the negative impact of imperialistic and capitalist greed on Okinawan society and the world at large. In the postscripts of these books, Ishikawa specifically lamented over the inability for his generation (the people he often photographs) to free themselves from the destruction of these consuming forces. However Ishikawa has suggested that the acceptance of the present and confirmation one's own existence through representational media, such as photography, can act as a form of resistance.

Ishikawa has insisted that these topics arise from photographs, rather than serving as the motivation to take photographs. Only in the aftermath of shooting and viewing his pictures in sum does Ishikawa typically start to grasp the meaning of his work. Over the span of several days, the two hunted and foraged with minimal camping equipment. In stark contrast to his earlier work, CAMP featured no people, but rather consisted of landscapes and camping scenes. Ishikawa has admitted that photographing within the new environment was notably challenging for him, as his lack of knowledge about nature left him disoriented when shooting. Unable to discern amongst the immense nature he was surrounded with, Ishikawa reluctantly shot images without much thought and was consequently "embarrassed" by the publication. In 2021, Ishikawa released his second publication involving his outdoor expeditions The Inside of Life. This extension, and reimagining, of his nature photographs focused primarily on the organs and carcasses of animals he and Hattori hunted. Ishikawa's interest in the deceased bodies and organs of animals grew from simultaneous feelings of excitement, over their beauty, and disgust. Despite their gore and foul smell, Ishikawa emphasized the organs' appeal through delicate and intentional framing and juxtaposed them against stones, leaves, and plants. For Ishikawa, organs also served as a dual metaphor for both life and death, of which he was constantly reminded of while in the wilderness. the Photographic Society of Japan Newcomer's Award (2015),

Publications

SHIBA 踊る惑星 (≈ SHIBA Dancing Planet). Self-published, 2010. しば正龍 女形の魅力 (≈ Seiryu Shiba: Allure of the Female Role Player). Self-published, 2013. Ryuichi Ishikawa. Self-published, 2014. A Grand Polyphony. Kyoto: AKAAKA Art Publishing. 2014. okinawan portraits 2010–2012. Kyoto: AKAAKA Art Publishing. 2014. adrenamix. Kyoto: AKAAKA Art Publishing. 2015. okinawan portraits 2012–2016. Kyoto: AKAAKA Art Publishing. 2016. CAMP. Ishikawa: Slant. 2016. The Inside of Life. Kyoto: AKAAKA Art Publishing. 2021.

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions

2010: Portrait of a Brain. Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum, Okinawa 2014: RYUICHI ISHIKAWA. gallery Lafayette, Okinawa 2014: zkop. Atsukobarouh, Tokyo 2014: okinawan portraits. Place M, Tokyo 2014: A Grand Polyphony. Ginza Nikon Salon, Tokyo; Osaka Nikon Salon, Osaka (2015) 2015: okinawan portraits. The Third Gallery Aya, Osaka 2015: A Grand Polyphony. Galerie Nord, Paris 2016: okinawan portraits 2012-2016. Art Gallery Artium, Fukuoka; The Third Gallery Aya, Osaka; Epson Imaging Gallery - EPSITE, Tokyo 2016: Once thinking, nothing before eyes. Yokohama Civic Gallery Azamino, Yokohama 2016: Camp. Wag Gallery, Tokyo; Have A nice gallery, Taipei; Gallery SLANT, Kanazawa (2016); tomari, Okinawa 2017: 草に沖に. Chiten, Kyoto 2017: OUTREMER / Ultramarine. Atsukobarouh, Tokyo; The Third Gallery Aya, Osaka 2018: zkop: a blessing in disguise. Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London 2018: home work. Chiten, Kyoto 2018: adrenamix. PIN-UP, Okinawa 2021: いのちのうちがわ. Sai Gallery, Tokyo

Selected group exhibitions

2012: Okinawa 0 Point: Exhibition Marking 40th Anniversary of Okinawa's Return to Japan. Heiwa-dori Street, Okinawa 2014: Daido Moriyama Portfolio Review Exhibition. Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum, Okinawa 2016: Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice. Mori Art Museum, Tokyo 2016: Body / Play / Politics. Yokohama Art Museum, Kanagawa 2017: Nissan Art Award 2017: Exhibition of New Works by Five Finalists. BankART Studio NYK, Kanagawa 2019: Reborn-Art Festival 2019, Miyagi Prefecture 2019: Oh! Matsuri ☆ Goto: Showa / Heisei Heroes and People in the Japanese Contemporary Art. Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo 2019: Artists Today. Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum, Okinawa 2019: Fotografia Europea 2019. Chiostri di San Pietro, Italy.