Artist

Keizo Kitajima is an award-winning artist whose photography has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums throughout Japan and Europe since 1979. His series, "Portraits + Places" has been on-going since 1989 and explores the simultaneous connection and disconnection between humans and the places they inhabit. Originally a street photographer, shooting people interacting within daily life in cities, the "Portaits + Places" project began when Kitajima decided to look closely at the dependence of people upon place, and place upon people. To delve deeply and carefully at the local--and thus global--relevance of this, Kitajima separated the two from one another, and the resulting two bodies of work speak independently, as well as collectively about individual humanness, landscape, memory, history, and globalization.

The "Places" portion of the project are carefully composed city landscapes devoid of people, and any identifying factors, such as signage or landmarks--urban scenes that could be Paris, New York, Hong Kong or Tokyo. The ambiguous nature of the locations re-enforces the recurring theme of a shared, universal existence that runs throughout Kitajima's work. While poetic, and subtle, his concern for the global impact of distinguished lines, whether emotional or within physical boundaries, is strongly reflected in his photographs.