When I encounter beauty beyond imagination, I feel anxiety, as if I am inside a labyrinth from the near future. It seems that this agitation of the mind pushes me to take photographs.

Kishin Shinoyama


Love dolls, photographed by Kishin Shinoyama, are lifelike which is actually unnerving. They also resemble stuffed animals. They are humanlike, but are not humans. They look alive, but they are not. We doubt our eyes as we are almost deceived, and we are partly seduced but also partly repulsed. What is more, photographs can depict something fake as real, and depict something real as fake. Photographic truth is not the same as reality. This mysterious property of photography is what Kishin Shinoyama continues to explore. And he is amazed, thrilled and moved each time he does so. Through the lens of his camera, we are taken on an extraordinary journey. From bewilderment to enchantment, eroticism to repulsion, romance to robots, from life to non-life, we are taken on a roller coaster ride, hurtling through space, which is beyond the realm of reason.

Atsuko Barouh, March 2017