TOKYO.- Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film presents Erika Yoshino’s solo exhibition “NEROLI” from July 9 to August 6. This will be Yoshino’s second solo exhibition with the gallery and it will feature approximately 20 works shot between 2011 and 2014.

Yoshino sees the photography, which she has kept facing, in relation to the complex scents that are extracted from certain moments and environments and evoke something specific inside ourselves through their diffusions. Based on this concept, she has organized the exhibition’s works under the keyword “NEROLI.”

“Neroli” is an oil made from the flowers of a bitter orange tree. Sometimes, it is also referred to as “Neroli Bigarade.” “Bigarade” means bitter orange in French. Its scientific name is “Citrus aurantium.” Extracted from flowers of trees over 20 years old immediately after they bloom, Neroli has a complex scent that is a mixture of flower nectar, tree bark, and leaf. When I photograph, I release the shutter of my camera, at times impulsively, focusing on the subjects and also on my own emotions. The image appears on the photographic paper and makes a fleeting moment permanent. Neroli is like a collection of time. In aromatherapy, it colors the air with its distinct scent which evokes the image of a beautiful white bitter orange flower. I would like to capture moments of chance, passion, and ineffable, irreplaceable importance in photographs. --Erika Yoshino, May 2016

Since 2010, Yoshino has primarily shot color photographs. Having published Just Like on the Radio in 2011, the images presented in this exhibition show a new mature phase in her work. In addition to the snapshots taken in the northern part of the Kanto region, there are images in which the photographer intentionally captured a reflection in a mirror or re-photographed pictures of multiple prints of the same image. The resulting effect is a mixture of reality and a small, fictional world of the artist’s own making that invites a more nuanced and richer reading.

Erika Yoshino’s new book NEROLI will also be published concurrently with the exhibition.

Erika Yoshino was born in Honjo City, Saitama Prefecture in 1970. She began photographing in 1989, and graduated from Tokyo College of Photography in 1994. While a student, she was influenced by the photographer Kiyoshi Suzuki; from the late 1990s on, she produced many black and white works in this mode of street photography. In 2010 she began producing works in color: her works, shot in and around Tokyo, are tranquil, but also forcefully draw their viewers in with their unique worldview. Yoshino’s major solo exhibitions include “ICE Echo Wave,” Ginza Nikon Salon, Tokyo (1995), “Enoshima Zero Meter,” Works H., Kanagawa (1996), “Max Is Making Wax,” Viewing Room Yotsuya, YUMIKO CHIBA ASSOCIATES, Tokyo (2001), “Eleanor Rigby,” Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino, Kanagawa (2008), “Just like on the radio,” Port Gallery T, Osaka (2011), “Digitalis,” Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film, Tokyo (2012) and “NEROLI,” Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film, Tokyo (2016). Group shows include “Eleven & Eleven: Korea Japan Contemporary Art,” The Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul (2002), “Black Out: Contemporary Japanese Photography,” The Japan Cultural Institute in Rome (2002, later traveled to Paris and Tokyo) and “Nonchalant,” 4-F Gallery, Los Angeles (2004).