KAWA
Buddhist monk Kajii made his name with the award-winning work NAMI – Waves – in 2004; the following year he was named Newcomer of the Year by the Photography Society of Japan. KAWA, a book and exhibition at Tokyo's Foil gallery, sees Kajii turn his hypnotic attention to rivers. Every page of this lucid, crystalline series is awe-inspiring. Ultra-real close-ups of splashes, their droplets like pearls; frozen rocks and plants on riverbanks; shimmering surfaces of rivers in rain; the kinetic energy of underwater waves and fish; night-time lights like electric charges, shooting across dark water. With the variety and simplicity of these astonishing images, Kajii has achieved his stated aim of making the act of photography akin to the chanting of a sutra.