In 1963 Kunié Sugiura moved to the United States to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she attended the classes of the photographers Kenneth Josephson and Frank Barsotti.
Her work reveals her training as a photographer — her knowledge of the techniques and the history of the medium — and her interest in pictorial languages and the difficulties of abstraction. The central motifs of her production include objects that are part of everyday life, elements from nature and landscape, and depictions of the human figure. Sugiura approaches those models on the basis of extreme simplification of forms, converting them into silhouettes, shadows and geometric patterns that emerge from experimenting with techniques such as solarisation and rayography. Using these methodological solutions, where randomness is subject to constant adjustments, she offers the viewer delicate images of great poetic content which refer to a space of ‘light paintings’, an experimental photographic language originated in the historical avant-garde by figures such as Man Ray.
Since her first appearance on the exhibition circuit in 1969, Kunié Sugiura has continued to exhibit her works mainly at galleries in New York and Tokyo. Her work has also been included in exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, United States, 2016); the Visual Arts Center (Summit, United States, 2008); and the Civica de Módena Gallery (Italy, 1999).
In 1963 Kunié Sugiura moved to the United States to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she attended the classes of the photographers Kenneth Josephson and Frank Barsotti.
Her work reveals her training as a photographer — her knowledge of the techniques and the history of the medium — and her interest in pictorial languages and the difficulties of abstraction. The central motifs of her production include objects that are part of everyday life, elements from nature and landscape, and depictions of the human figure. Sugiura approaches those models on the basis of extreme simplification of forms, converting them into silhouettes, shadows and geometric patterns that emerge from experimenting with techniques such as solarisation and rayography. Using these methodological solutions, where randomness is subject to constant adjustments, she offers the viewer delicate images of great poetic content which refer to a space of ‘light paintings’, an experimental photographic language originated in the historical avant-garde by figures such as Man Ray.
Since her first appearance on the exhibition circuit in 1969, Kunié Sugiura has continued to exhibit her works mainly at galleries in New York and Tokyo. Her work has also been included in exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, United States, 2016); the Visual Arts Center (Summit, United States, 2008); and the Civica de Módena Gallery (Italy, 1999).