Yasuo Kiyonaga

A photographer based in Tokyo and Kyoto.
Born in 1948 in Kagawa, Japan.

In his photographic work, Yasuo Kiyonaga interprets nature, villages, cities, people, and other aspects of everyday life in surrealistic ways. The subjects captured in his viewfinder are freed from their original contexts and given new shapes and significances.

Many of his works are associated with the abstract arts of Cubism and Surrealism.

His output is not limited to photography. Using his unique skills, he beautifully combines seemingly incompatible concepts such as photographs and paintings, nature and the artificial, two-dimensional and three-dimensional, past and future, and dreams and reality, transforming them into art.

In 1966, strongly influenced by the two photographers Jean-Eugène Atget and Aaron Siskind, Kiyonaga began studying photography. In 1970, after graduating from a college photography program, he started working for Recruit Co., Ltd. as a staff photographer, primarily photographing workers in Japan. In 1980, he left the organization and established SHC, a company specializing in the planning and production of corporate communication content, a relatively unknown field at the time.

Kiyonaga focused on the field of photojournalism fo...

2022

“Spirit of Forest” “Floating memories” “Identity” -Unseen Amsterdam 2022

“Spirit of Forest” - Gallery Japanesque Paris

“Two landscapes” “Woods of Strife” - fotofever 2022

“Identity” “Floating memories” “Spirit of Forest” - Art Shopping Paris

2021

“Lost Village” “REAL” - Gallery Japanesque Paris

“Japanese Tool” “Perspectives” - Kyoto Museum of Photography

2020

"Identity" January 2020 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

2019

"6%" October 2019 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

"Colonia del Sacramento" July 2019 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

2018

"Togakushi's Tools" January 2018 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

2017

“Raw Hawaii” October 2017 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

“Piece of Memories” July 2017 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

“Afterglow of Ancient Towns” May 2017 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

“Wall in the city” April 2017 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

“Japanese tools” April 2017 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

“Winter Wonderland” April 2017 - Artisan Tokyo

2016

“Indulgence in the autumn” October 2016 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

“Sense of Rain” April 2016 - Kyoto Museum of Photography

2015

“Japanese tools” April 2015 - Artisan Tokyo