shashasha

Looking at the almost graphical compositions in Satomi Sakuma’s color-satured photographs, one might believe the title “Circle Triangle Square” to refer to geometrical shapes. Yet it is inspired by a painting by Buddhist monk Sengai. Sakuma, originally trained in oil painting, approaches photography in the way a painter would, paying closer attention to direct response to the formation of colors and shapes than to more cerebral areas.

“I feel like I get caught in Sengai’s trap with any of my feeble interpretations […
First, move outside the world of your recognition. You need to begin a journey towards inscrutable.” — from Satomi Sakuma’s statement

The book is concluded by an afterword/essay by Osamu Kanemura, in which he meditates on the relations between eye, camera, seeing and reality, and how they inform each other.