The Flesh Love photography exhibition closed at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, USA. She has already traveled to a good part of the world's galleries, but despite this, the reactions of the viewers are similar to those at the first exhibition.
From photos mature images of couples, wrapped in polyvinyl bags, during which you run out of air, during which you become anxious, during which you wonder about the author of the exhibited works, during which you wonder how they could have climbed into the bag in this pose and last but not least how can they breathe in these bags. A Japanese photographer who chose his stage name Photographer Hal, expresses the basic theme in his works of love, which is personified by selected authentic, naturist couples. For the project Flesh Love, as well as for other projects, is looking for potential couples in underground bars. At the beginning of his career, he had to work hard to get them on his side, but nowadays, when his projects are already known, they come to him on their own, wanting to pose for him. A series of photographs Flesh Love shows vapors trapped in clear plastic bags. While they portray the psychological and emotional intimacy they share, an element of danger is also latently felt. Choking hazard. When the pair climbs into the vacuum bag, Hal with a mammal the remaining air is sucked out of the bag. Since then has 10 seconds, to take a shot while the two individuals in the bag hold their breath. In order to completely surrender to the feelings and experience, he himself climbed into the sack, and he describes the experience as an indescribable feeling of fear. During this time, when the two bodies are close to each other in different poses, they begin to communicate and form a certain shape. The two lovers grow closer and closer until they are finally united into one being. His message is clear: the most important thing is to get close to someone, to connect. At the same time that the two are closest to each other, when they are most deeply devoted to each other, they discover fears that they did not previously associate with closeness, devotion or love.
Who is Hal?
He is a Japanese photographer who got into photography by accident. He studied engineering and later found his passion in photography. Lives and works in Tokyo, where he was also born, and already during his studies, his greatest desire was to discover new places and people. As soon as he got the chance, he did left Japan and went on a journey of discovery of the Middle East and India. It was on these trips that he realized for the first time that he had discovered his life's passion. The camera became a medium with which he overcame shyness and barriers to communication, through which he established communication with the people he met. After graduation, he joined an advertising agency, where he gained insight and gained a wider spectrum of photographic knowledge. The tasks were varied, but the projects and assignments that included the painting of well-known and established fashion icons marked him the most and fatally. It determined his the artistic path he devoted to painting people. He quit his job and indulged his passion, and soon convinced the public and attracted their attention with his distinctive, unique conceptual portraits of Tokyo couples. One of his first major projects is a series of photographs Pinky & Killer DX, in which he captured the happenings behind the closed doors of love hotels in Tokyo's underground clubs. Invasion of privacy and peeking into the intimate spaces of an individual is the common thread of his works. With a voyeuristic approach, he captured the wild side of the couples, who are often naked and shameless in the pictures. He published the photos in a book in 2008. Already a year later, he presented the project Couple Jam, which reaches even further into the intimate sphere.
Couple Jam
He chose the couple's home, their bathroom, as the location for the painting. Their bathtub. He invaded the most intimate part of their home and convinced them to get into the bathtub. Their relationship was sadistic, in the style of a hookup game. As the connection between the couple solidified, the two individuals drew together like a magnet, showing themselves without masks and revealing themselves in their most honest form.
In the coming year, she wants to exhibit independently with the Fresh Love project in Paris and Tokyo. With love.
Bathtubs, couples, love and challenges are strong guiding themes that characterize the artist's work, complemented by the key elements of individuality, style, communication and intimacy.
His focus is on love subject, which started the project Pinky & Killer DX, continued with Couple Jam and reached the top with a final batch of photos Flesh Love. Currently, Hal explores and seeks new dimensions in portrait photography, in which a person defined by love is in the foreground.
"For Flesh Love, I photographed about 80 couples. I spent about two hours on each pair.”
Interview - photographer HAL
CITY:Who are the models for your projects?
HAL: I became a voyeur, looking for my models in the underground scene in Tokyo, in nightclubs and bars like Kabuki-cho in Shinjuku or Shibuya, where couples show their love unashamedly. As soon as I find a couple, I start convincing them to pose for me. The couples are from all backgrounds: musicians, dancers, strippers, workers, managers, photographers, businessmen, unemployed...
CITY:The volunteers who pose for you give themselves completely to you, it's a kind of intimate relationship. Such relationships can bring good and less good moments...
HAL: That's right, they open my heart and the painting begins. These are usually happy moments, some even get married after taking pictures. On the other hand, things don't always go so smoothly. It happens that the couple does not show up for the picture or they fight after the picture is finished and the pictures may or may not be published.
