Hiroshi Sugimoto: Five Elements

These images depict the color of light Sugimoto observed through a prism in his Tokyo studio. Using Polaroid film, the artist recorded sections of the rainbow spectrum projected into a darkened chamber, paying particular attention to the spaces and gaps between hues. The resulting works, each measuring approximately 5’ framed, are vivid, near-sculptural renderings of pure light.

For more than four decades, Hiroshi Sugimoto has been photographing seascapes around the world. “A sharp horizon line and a cloudless sky– here began my consciousness.” writes Sugimoto, “From there my thoughts race to the origins of human consciousness itself. The sea reminds me that within my blood remain traces of human evolution over hundreds of thousands of years.”

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Lightning Fields triangulate Benjamin Franklin and Michael Faraday’s pioneering electricity research with William Fox Talbot’s discovery of calotype photography. In this body of work, Sugimoto seeks to capture and re-create these momentous innovations in the darkroom. 

To create each image, Sugimoto uses a Van De Graaff 400,000-volt generator to apply an electrical charge directly onto film. The result in each case is a unique, instantaneous image of an electrical current, sometimes resembling a meteor shower, or a “treeing effect” on the film.