Natural Fashion

Since she fled her homeland to escape the mortifying servitude and humiliating fate of Japanese women, Kimiko Yoshida - through what is called "self-portraits"- has refined and amplified a feminist stance of protest, cultivated and distanced from "current affairs": against contemporary cliches of seduction, voluntary servitude of women, stereotypes of "gender" and biological determinism of heredity.

Kimiko Yoshida's quasi-monochrome self-portraits are well known and well acknowledged. These large, square, subtly lit monochromic photographs constitute her signature works since 2001.
Her new series of photographs, majestic and indecipherable portraits conceived with the history of art in mind, is entitled Painting. Self-portrait. This symbolic transposition of the chefs-d'oeuvre of the old masters into large archival prints on canvas is based essentially on the diversion of haute couture garments and accessories designed by Paco Rabanne.

Born in Tokyo (1963), Kimiko Yoshida lives in Europe since 1995.

" To be there where I think I am not, to disappear where I think i am, That is what matters."

~~Kimiko Yoshida

Courtesy Kimiko Yoshida / Jean-Michel Ribettes

Painting. Self-portrait is currently on exhibit at Ruarts Gallery, Moscow

April 4- May 21, 2011
This post is also featured on the Huffington Post

Based in Paris, Japanese artist Kimiko Yoshida self portraits sublimate a childhood marked by abandon and wandering. Her costumes are nourished by fantasies, memories, dreams and legends..... Ghostly, travestied into a man or hermaphrodite, Kimiko Yoshida endlessly questions identity, wholeness. Her photographs let her face appear or disappear, disguised and made up.
" Everyone in the world tries to be unique, I want to be numerous, become universal."
" La ou je ne suis pas, " in English " Where I'm not, " is a retrospective of self-portraits by Kimiko Yoshida, from the early series " Brides " to her most recent work entitled " Paintings " shown for the first time in France, at La Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Paris.

In this powerful series of 80 photographs, former fashion designer Kimiko Yoshida appropriates Paco Rabanne’s haute couture creations. She transforms dressed, skirts, accessories, trousers and shoes into Grand Siècle hairpieces, antique parures, and historical costumes.

" La ou je ne suis pas "

Goddess of war Athena by Klimt, 2010

Courtesy Paco Rabanne