| Shinichi Maruyama’s work is subconsciously influenced by a Japanese sense of beauty. This sense of beauty can be found in the concept of “wabi-sabi,” referring to the beauty of imperfection and understated elegance. Additionally, this beauty is also expressed in “ma,” the use of negative space, found in the art of calligraphy as well as in the design a of a traditional rock garden. As a young student, Maruyama often wrote Chinese characters in sumi ink. He loved the nervous, precarious feeling of sitting before an empty white page, the moment just before his brush touched the paper. He was always excited to see the unique result of each new brushing. |  |
Shinichi Maruyama
Shinichi Maruyama’s work is subconsciously influenced by a Japanese sense of beauty. This sense of beauty can be found in the concept of “wabi-sabi,” referring to the beauty of imperfection and understated elegance. Additionally, this beauty is also expressed in “ma,” the use of negative space, found in the art of calligraphy as well as in the design a of a traditional rock garden.
As a young student, Maruyama often wrote Chinese characters in sumi ink. He loved the nervous, precarious feeling of sitting before an empty white page, the moment just before his brush touched the paper. He was always excited to see the unique result of each new brushing. Remembering those childhood moments, of ink, water and empty page, he fashioned a large “brush” and bucket of ink. He gets the same feeling, a precarious, nervous excitement, standing before the empty studio space. Each stroke is unique, ephemeral. He can never copy or recreate them. He says, “I know something fantastic is happening, a decisive moment, but I can’t fully understand the event until I look at these [images].”
Shinichi Maruyama was born in 1968 in Nagano, Japan. Surrounded by beautiful mountains, in high school he became immersed in mountain climbing and, wanting to preserve the stunning landscapes, began taking photographs. After graduating in 1991, where he majored in Film/Photography at Chiba University, Maruyama began taking photos for his personal project “Into the Spiti Valley,” a documentary work about Tibetan culture in India, the exhibition for which later opened in 2001 along with the publication of two books Into The Spiti Valley and Spiti. He moved to New York in 2003 where he created his latest two series, “Nihonga” and “Paint the sky, Capture the moment,” which were both shown at London Photo 2007 this spring and can be viewed at Silverstein Photography in Chelsea, New York.
