The eyes don’t move in the complete darkness.
The eyes move only when we recognize the existence of something there.

Basing on this thought, I started to work on this series.
Creating the darkness first of all, I wondered to myself what it means the act of “seeing”, and what makes the difference between our eyes and what photographs show us.

I chose a chandelier as a motif of this series because it shows a straightforward reaction to the light.
It receives the light and also radiates it.
And then, what is the light?
In my previous works, Tableaux series, I focused on a light because it is universal.

It has always existed since an ancient time before the naissance of human beings. We can feel a sort of nostalgia toward the light, which exists from prehistoric era.

And there is an act of “seeing”.
In the pictures, there is always a point focused on.
We always pay attention to this point in focus.
However, if the lens of camera is single, we have a pair of eyes.
Knowing this difference help us to understand what the act of “seeing” is.

Our eyes perceive the object in focus.
The attention is paid only to the point in focus.
Focusing on something means an effort to look for things, tentative to know what it is.

Then comes next the synthetic comprehension of the objet.

But we are not usually conscious of the rejected point out of focus.

The photograph is a creature of the static image.
It makes us rediscover the thing we are not conscious of.
I tried to make the pictures as how we see the things by our eyes as close as possible, and at the same time, to make a difference between them.

Incidentally,
These chandeliers are witnesses of the history.
A number of historic scenes are shown under their brightness.
Sometimes they have witnessed the changes of nations, other times they gave a light of sadness and joy.
Yet the most important fact is that everything has taken place under the light.

Yuji ONO

* Luminescence: an emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat, caused by the external energy.

Photos gelatin silver print

size
110cm×95cm （Edition 1/3）