Rinko Kawauchi Abstract Photography

Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi weaves a narrative of the duality between life and death in her work. Her images simultaneously suggest optimism for an idyllic existence and existential dread for the struggles of everyday life.

Kawauchi graduated from Seian University of Art and Design in 1993. In 2001, she released a trio of photobooks — Utatane, Hanabi and Hanako — that received critical acclaim and launched Kawauchi’s career. Over the next two decades, she produced over 20 photobooks.

Kawauchi is a master narrator capable of telling stories in a minimalist style. Like the haikus she writes to accompany her work, Kawauchi’s photography offers poetry in the stillness of a single frame. Simplicity is a key element in her work, which captures intentional moments and freezes nature in time. Her subjects include fire, fireworks, clouds, lightning, sakura blossoms and waves. 

In 2002, Kawauchi won the Rookie of the Year Award from the Photographic Society of Japan. She received the International Center of Photography’s Annual Infinity Award in 2009 and was shortlisted in 2012 for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. In 2013, she won the Domestic Photographer Award at the 29th Higashikawa Awards and the Art Encourage Prize for New Artist from the Ministry of Education.

She has exhibited her work around the world, including at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, the Photographer’s Gallery in London, the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo and White Cube in Kyoto.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of Rinko Kawauchi’s photography.