Toshio Shibata
Imabari City, Ehime Prefecture
2007
Okawa
2007
Yamagata Prefecture
2016
Nagai City, Yamagata Prefecture
2016
Okura Village, Yamagata Prefecture
2007
Midori City, Gunma Prefecture
2008
Kijo Town, Miyazaki Prefecture
2011
Itsuke Village, Kumamoto Prefecture
2015
Takahashi City, Okayama Prefecture
2014
Clackamas County, OR
2004
Miyazaki Prefecture
2015
Nikko City, Tochigi Prefecture
2013
Osaki City, Miyagi Prefecture
2016
Laurence Miller Gallery, in partnership with Asia Week New York, presents Toshio Shibata – Harmony, a solo exhibition featuring large format color photographs that extend his exploration of man-made structures co-existing within nature. Laurence Miller Gallery is the first and only photography gallery to participate in ASIA WEEK NEW YORK, now in its eighth year.
Toshio Shibata’s connections with Japanese artistic tradition are intriguing. He purposefully went against the grain of the traditional Japanese concept of landscape, yet his viewpoint is unmistakably Japanese. His work has a strong connection with the way classical Japanese architecture integrates itself within its environment. In this sense, Shibata’s mediations on the contemporary landscape have a surprising connection to classical Japanese tea pavilions - both are set carefully within the surrounding landscape, and each displays a refined sense of spatial proportion
Shibata’s work is never didactic; rather he allows the surprising interplay between elements to conjure up new ways of seeing. What Shibata does bring to these scenes is a deftly calibrated sense of composition and a subtle color sensibility. His early training as a painter can be seen in his thoughtful arrangement of the elements within each frame.
In Midori City, Gunma Prefecture, classical Japanese themes are literally at the fore as the modern bridge in the distance is seen through a screen of cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms are, of course, the flowers most loved by the Japanese, and their short bloom cycle is culturally enshrined as a symbol of the transience of life. Shibata composes the picture in a way that emphasizes that this scene, for all its beauty, is also a quotidian roadside moment.
If harmony is the interplay and balance between distinct elements, it could be said that Toshio Shibata has built his photographic practice around finding visual harmony in the places where the constructed and natural world meet, somewhere those before him hadn’t thought to look.
Arthur Lubow reveiws the 2016 AIPAD Photography Show for The New York Times
New York times staff writer Martha Schwendener enumerates her top picks from Asia Week New York and it's "10-day parade of exhibitions". She singles out Laurence Miller Gallery's presentation of Toshio Shibata's "quiet environmental-abstractions" as a highlight.
Toshio Shibata talks to Guardian writer Sian Cain about what went into the making of his iconic picture of the Okawa Village bridge.
The Japanese photographer Toshio Shibata is fascinated by water — in particular, the way it interacts with man-made structures. For the later half of his almost-40-year career in photography, he has explored this relationship in novel ways, hiding horizon lines and taking the perspective of the water itself with his camera, visually evoking its rushing sound.
