Photographer David Fokos was born in 1960 and currently lives in California. He has been photographing for 25 years and first began publicly exhibiting his work in 1998. Each year, the list of contemporary art galleries in the United States and Europe featuring his work continues to grow. An expanding audience, critical praise and the rising value of his prints have made his work an increasingly sought after item for the portfolios of art museums, brand image conscious corporations, and private art collectors. All this is proof that David Fokos is a new rising star in the world of contemporary fine art photography who is here to stay.

With their provocative juxtapositions of natural and manmade objects, Fokos’ carefully composed photographs go beyond typical landscape photography to create photographs with a subtle minimalism and modernist tone. Fokos’ choice to make monochromatic images in a square format stands in stark contrast to the deliberately shocking pieces that seem to be the norm of today’s contemporary art scene. His unique black and white compositions are like a gentle tempest that calms yet gently stirs the emotions of the viewer. The richness of these photographs permits a range of interpretations that varies with the viewer, time, and place.

Understanding the role of long exposure is crucial to understanding what Fokos wants to express through his photographs. Many of Fokos’ pictures were shot using exposures lasting anywhere from 20 seconds to as long as an hour. This technique is the result of long experimentation in search of the best way to preserve on film the impact a given scene has on him. A long exposure acts to completely erase what Fokos calls “visual noise” while preserving the emotions and sensations he feels when he looks at a subject. Thus this technique functions to reconcile his subjective and objective views of the world while preserving on film for the viewer what he feels as he gazes out over the water -- the expansiveness of the sea, and the strong line of the distant horizon where sea meets sky. Light and shadow. The instant that the natural phenomena before him merge with his senses and mood Fokos calmly closes the shutter and captures the moment.

There is an old and quite famous story concerning the renowned Japanese tea master, Sen No Rikyu. At an important tea ceremony held early one summer to honor the Shogun Hideyoshi, Rikyu brazenly cut down all of the morning glories blooming in his garden, placing the most beautiful blossom in a vase. A single morning glory standing serenely in a little tea room: here is Rikyu’s sense of beauty at its most sublime, where even the distance and space between nature and man becomes part of a prefect expression of harmony, where nothing is superfluous, nothing wasted. It is said that as Hideyoshi stood before this magnificent expression of the Zen aesthetic, he burned with envy at the depths of Rikyu’s genius.

Though he feels he has much to learn before he truly grasps its essence, Fokos says this same spirit of wabisabi plays no small part in his photography. And indeed there is an intriguing confluence between Fokos’ wiping away of visual noise, carefully composed frames, and spatial interpretation and Rikyu’s morning glory. These are photographs engaged in a quiet dialogue with nature, where the fragile and ephemeral delicately entwine with pristine clarity. This, I think, is the essence of these breathtaking photographs.

Emon Photo Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of David Fokos’ photography. This first ever exhibition of Mr. Fokos’ work in Japan opens on December 12 and runs through January 31. Serene meditations on “boundless harmony.” Here, in this space, the visitor is sure to feel, just as I have, the sublime tranquility of these exceptional photographs.

November 2006 Seiji Komatsu − Director, Emon Inc.
English text by Glenn Rich