Hisaji Hara Japanese, b. 1964

Hara Hisaji was born in Tokyo and graduated from the Musahino Art University in 1986. In 1993 he emigrated to the United States and worked as a director of photography for television and documentary film before returning to Japan in 2001.

 

The photographs included in his series After Balthus were created over a period of five years from 2006. Each of these monochrome portraits was painstakingly modelled by Hara as photographic compositions based on paintings by Balthus (1908-2001), one of the most revered and controversial artists of the twentieth century.

 

Hara creates scenes imbued with an unsettling combination of innocence and eroticism. The models have the light, unselfconscious attitudes of playful children and yet their postures invite the eye to see them as sexual young women. Moreover, in reinventing the pictures as staged photographs, Hara has chosen to dress his teenage subjects in school uniform, thereby emphasizing the uncomfortable transitional period between child and adulthood. We feel as if we are the quiet, almost intrusive voyeurs to moments of youthful innocence.

 

Hara is very meticulous in his preparation for each image. The stage set for these photographs is the derelict building of a privately run medical clinic used in the 1940's and 50's. In order to emulate the depth and eerie atmosphere found in Balthus' paintings, Hara employs a number of techniques that transcend the use of photographic craft alone in order to mimic the skewed perspective of Balthus' work, including smoke machines, specially commissioned furniture, and unseen additions to his subject's costumes which create a strange angularity to their dress. Hara's camera skills are evident in the use of multiple exposures and focuses whilst partially blocking the lens to create unsettling depths of field, which only add to the mystery of the scenes.

 

Hara’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including the Seoul Arts Centre, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, and Taipei National University’s Museum. He was awarded first prize at the Yokohama Photo Festival in 2010.