Water Mirror
‘Water Mirror’is a condensation of all that makes Suzuki’s photography so appealing: his profound ruminations on the subject of photography itself and the continuous questioning of what it means to ‘look’. The series explicitly shows the artist's engagement with the origins of representation and the principles of the photographic medium. ‘Our eyes gather and sort visual information and the brain creates a coherent understanding of a scene as a whole. But the water surface is an exception, as it acts like a mirror creating complicated optical effects. […] The sight of a space seemingly of extraordinary depth appearing in the flat surface of the water is one of mystery, and our gaze is lured, sucked even, deep into this world we can see.’ – Risaku Suzuki. When you look at the water through the lens of a camera, the leaves are shown in utter verisimilitude, making it impossible to distinguish the reflections from the actual trees standing in the soil and air. The result is a mimetic representation that only exists within the photographs. In their presentation, Suzuki interchanges the positions of air and water by switching the vertical orientations of the photographs. Trying to determine whether the photograph is of trees or their reflection, we realize that originally, the photograph is itself a reflected image – an interlaced visual experience, where the works themselves become an idiosyncratic photographic theory. With its luscious, thoughtful images, ‘Water Mirror’ invites on a fascinating voyage of perceptions and will probably become one of Suzuki's most representative works.
