Keiko Goto - 'Beneath the Tranquility'

Wednesday 18 May - Sunday 5 June 2016

  


Keiko Goto was born in Tokyo and grew up in the Snowy Mountains (NSW) in the early 70s (her father worked on the Snowy Mountain’s last hydro project). She has also lived in various places throughout the world - the remote Russian island of Sakhalin, the United Kingdom, Tokyo and, recently, Brisbane. It is this diversity that enables her to form a vibrant and multi-cultural background.

Goto's fascination has always been with nature and people living everyday lives in remote regions that embrace the environment.

Her approach in photography is to use black and white film taken with an old Leica camera (1938). She prints by herself in a darkroom using silver gelatine archival fibre paper.

For Beneath the Tranquility, the monochrome world is devoid of any colour but black, white and many subtle ranges of grey which quietly presents tranquillity in the winter scenes from Sakhalin Island in Far East Russia. The winter is long (six months) and starts as early as November. The snow covers everything in white and yet one can still feel the hive of activities involving people’s lives, history and politics.