ZEN FOTO GALLERY

Zen Foto Gallery is pleased to announce its first exhibition for 2018 - Masaki Yamamoto’s “GUTS” from January 12 to February 3. Works in black and white selected from his first photobook published with Zen Foto Gallery in September 2017 under the same title “GUTS” will be featured in the exhibition.

I am very happy that the photographs I took of my family have been compiled into my first photobook. My mother commented that the photographs presented in the book look like they are being taken by a professional - now the photobook is being proudly placed near the entrance of our home. The book doesn’t make me feel nostalgic yet like our other family photo albums, but I am very grateful to have been able to capture our daily lives in the apartment in which we have lived for 18 years before we moved out.

18 years is a very long period of time to look back to - all of our family have been involved with the society differently while we lived together. Whenever I open the door and say “tadaima (I’m home)”, I can either see my parents sleeping on each other or my brothers and sisters fighting over food and so on - they are all so human and humorous and their sense of values largely affected me and the Yamamoto family itself. While I am usually laughing and smiling at their nonsense and absurdity when I press the shutter, deep inside I feel very happy and close to how they are enjoying their mundane lives.

Only half a year passed since we moved to our new place, and my parents are already saying if my father loses his job and we can’t afford to pay our rent again, we might have to move back to our 4.5 jo apartment (about 7.5 square meters big). My family, like other families, will change its form when we have to say goodbye to our parents or when the kids grow up and become independent, but I believe that my work “GUTS” will also continue and transform together with the family.

ーMasaki Yamamoto, Dec 2017