Hiroshi Hayakawa is a Japanese artist working in photography, painting, sculpture, and papercraft. Hayakawa is best known for his photographs of nudes printed right on metal sheets covered with liquid photo emulsion. Some of his works are composed of several components, such as a metal-printed photograph, magnets, nails, threads, needles, wood, etc., which resembles the mixed-media approach of the British artist Russell Mills.
Fig. 1. Tracy, 1996, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 2. Wave, 2000, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 3. Cascade 1, 2000, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 4. Her Spine 2, 1999, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Time Vs. Eternity
Hayakawa writes on his website the following: "My photographic work deals with the transformation of the physical and conceptual properties of the medium by means of time. My images are printed on oxidized sheet metal through the application of photographic emulsion onto the surface. In this process, the rust on the metal penetrates the image from underneath and surfaces to become part of the image. The time represented by a photographic image, which belongs to the past, is physically shifted and relocated by the decay of the material, which is the manifestation of ongoing time. The senses of permanence and timelessness conventionally associated with photographic prints are re-examined by the impermanence implied by the material (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)." This way, Hayakawa's works featuring rusted beauties show us Eros and Thanatos embraced like two eternal wrestlers. The "aged" metal makes these figures look like ancient Pompeian frescos if they were executed by another Japanese avant-garde artist Eikoh Hosoe, who similarly treats the female figure in his Embrace series.
Fig. 5. Lisa, 2002, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 6. Jenn back, 2000, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 7. G1, 2000, liquid photo emulsion on steel, needle, thread, magnet (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 8. Gravitation, 2000, Liquid photo emulsion on steel, wood, welded steel frame (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 9. Cadenza, Mixed Media, liquid photo emulsion on steel, needle, thread, magnet, wood, hardware (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 10. Asha back, 2000, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 11. Cascade 4, 2001, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 12. Echoes 1, 2001, liquid photo emulsion on steel, wood (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
French Literature And Computers
What we find remarkable in Hayakawa's scarce biographic facts, apart from his skill, is that he's an all-round man who can do both literature and engineering, though, prefers photography. In his early years, Hayakawa attained a BA in French Literature at Keio University, Tokyo. After graduation, he worked as a computer systems engineer for a few years and then got tired of his routine, realizing that he must be an artist. With this thought in mind, Hayakawa relocated to the US and enrolled in Columbus College of Art and Design to attain BFA in Photography. Then, he continued his education at Cranbrook Academy of Art and initially received MFA in Photography. From the very beginning of his studies, Hayakawa was interested in alternative photography and remained its' devotee for a long time. Since 1994, he's been substituting paper for the metal in his photographs. Nowadays, the artist's shifted towards kinetic sculpture and kirigami (the kirigami figures are cut from one sheet of paper, so the three-dimensional design stands away from the page). Hayakawa currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, and teaches at Columbus College of Art and Design.
Fig. 13. Levitation 2, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 14. Levitation 3, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 15. Levitation 4, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 16. Deep, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 17. Figure Ground 2, 2004, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
Fig. 18. Figure Ground 3, 2004, liquid photo emulsion on steel (hiroshi-hayakawa.com)
In the extended Premium edition of the article, among other things, more on the striking literary sources (like The Golden Ass) Hayakawa uses , and also including twice as much images
Click HERE for an article on the aesthetics of the Interaction of male and female bodies in works of Eikoh Hosoe
Hayakawa is active on Instagram via the following account hiroshihayakawaart
Source: hiroshi-hayakawa.com
