Taku Saito

New York, NY

Biography:
Despite the development of technology which provides people ever-realistic images even on the television news, people are losing our sense of “felt reality.” In this kind of world, his goal is to apprehend and come to a realization of what “reality” and “real things” are. Saito's consideration is always toward society or ordinary lives because those are ones of the “real” facts. Ordinary people, including him, who are seen on streets, have their fundamental message of reality on their presence. His attempt is to give spotlights on the people individually to show their “reality” but not as a unique person. The individual remains anonymous in his works. He sees himself on their image. Perhaps, so do others. Looking into others to extract their presence is the act of self-exploration that he uses while searching deep inside of himself. Eventually, his photographs of people become his self portraits, and vice versa, his self portraits would be the mirror of its audience. The faces of his portraits look straight forward without particular expressive emotion so they approach the abyss of minds.He condenses the emotionlessness to extract the essence of to show that which is more fundamental and “real”.