A range of delicately drawn items that appear to have sprung from the sleeping mind — including lines of ambling goats, tiny ladders, floating hands and thumbprints — cover the small-scale photographs and film installations of Japanese artist Hiraki Sawa.
The filmmaker is currently showing at London’s Parafin, with postage stamp sized framed works upstairs and imaginatively set films in the darkened space downstairs. The small scale of the wall-hung works creates a natural sense of intimacy, viewers moving close to the wall to see the details. Although many of these details seem to have come from the darker recesses of the mind — most of the faces are blanked out — there’s a gentleness and roundness to the covering lines that draws this away from nightmare territory. The pieces have a sense of calm to them, exploring these areas of the subconscious without fear.
The videos are all housed in intriguing settings; one work shown in the opening of a small wooden box, two others in lightboxes sat atop white tables. A large video work at the back of the ground floor sits ambiguously next to a pink radiator (the only splash of colour in the space); its connection to the work is not entirely obvious on first sight, perhaps it belongs to the gallery. A sudden lone bright pink burst in the video makes it seem otherwise.
The economical use of sound in the space mirrors the delicate yet slightly alien nature of the imagery which is both calming and slowly maddening.
‘Hiraki Sawa: Man in Camera’ is showing at Parafin, London until 17 September
