NAMI
With his series Nami (Wave), Syoin Kajii brings one of Japan’s most iconic visual traditions into the present. For centuries, the wave has been a central motif in Japanese art – from Katsushika Hokusai’s celebrated woodcut The Great Wave off Kanagawa to Hiroshi Sugimoto’s meditative seascapes. Kajii continues this lineage by placing the sea not as a static or symbolic image, but as a direct and lived experience at the centre of his work.
Created along the coast of Sado Island, the photographs depict waves as fleeting, almost sculptural forms of light and movement. As both Buddhist monk and photographer, Kajii approaches the subject with contemplative patience: measuring wind and swell, waiting at the shoreline until nature itself composes the image. Shot at close range – often standing in the water – his works reveal the power, ephemerality and dynamism of the ocean in a way that transcends documentary photography.
Nami was awarded the 1st FOIL Award in 2004; the accompanying photobook brought Kajii international recognition and remains a cornerstone of his artistic practice. Like Hokusai’s great wave or Sugimoto’s horizons, Kajii’s photographs are more than representations of nature – they are distillations of impermanence, energy and time.
