Artist2: Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto, a Japanese photographer, is an artist I first saw on reddit a couple years ago. Someone posted about images composed by controlling electricity. The post linked to a Wired article, explaining the thought and process behind the images (there are some nice, large images in the article as well). Sugimoto says about the series, "I see the spark of life itself, the lightening that struck the primordial ooze." As discussed in the article, the viewer can't help but see trees, webs of rivers and estuaries, and structures hinting at the human nervous system.

The stark and striking style in the electric art is a staple of Sugimoto's art. Born in Japan and beginning his art career in the 1970's, he was born and bred to minimalism. His images possess a certain uniformity, even across his various series. Each piece carries a sombre and simple quality, with little color or flash. Extending his minimalist style into his concepts, Sugimoto discusses the most fundamental aspects of existence: things like perception, time, and mortality.

Another particularly interesting series is made up of sculptures (image below). Sugimoto explains that he entered mathematical formulas into a 3-dimensional printer and photographs the product. Taking complex math formulae out of imagination - making the abstract real and tangible - makes mathematics so much more real to the viewer. Math is how we explain the inner workings of many things which aren't apparent, and to be able to see and feel something at perhaps the highest level of abstraction is, if nothing else, striking.

Sugimoto's work, always playing with the most fundamental aspects of existence, seems to be an effort to break down and pull apart these most basic parts in order to better grasp the nature of the subjects in his work and achieve a more wholesome understanding of these concepts.