Kensuke Koike, Deconstructing and Reconstructing Photography

Cutting, tearing, disassembling before collecting the pieces of photographs. The artistic process of Kensuke Koike always begins with a phase of deconstruction and ends with a final surrealist collage.

Born in Nagoya and having art graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 2004, Kensuke Koike seemed more likely to be behind the camera. But, after having found old photographs at an antique dealer in Milan in 2012, his artistic path took a divergence. With a newly found penchant for vintage photographs, Koike has been on the look out for black and white gems ever since. The artist has a playful eye and uses abundant imagination to create completely original images out of these found objects; where men have arms for legs and legs for arms and women lose their eyes but find themselves bestowed a cigarette.

More interestingly still is perhaps the process, documented with a video on his website. We observe in particular how he tears a postcard to reveal a woman with a cigarette between two fingers. Slowly, the artist makes the tear, turns the paper, folds it and continues his work until reaching the cigarette. He finally assembles both parts of the sheet, and the tear suddenly turns into a stream of smoke escaping from the cigarette, creating a new image.

This unusual art is intriguing. Beyond its simple technical aspect, it is perhaps above all the poetry of Koike’s works that is the most affecting. The artist takes the time to take an interest in forgotten photos, and equipped with just his hands, bestows a second life upon the anonymous figures of these images.