Rinko Kawauchi is a photographer known for her poetic depictions of everyday life. Fascinated with the pictorial potential of the most mundane things, her photographs recreate the familiar as strange and new. Kawauchi works in series, which – in the form of open narratives – combine poetry and emotion with representations of mortality and occasional melancholy.
Kawauchi graduated from Seian University of Art and Design in 1993. She has held solo exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Moderna, São Paulo (2007); The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2006); and Fondation Cartier, Paris (2005). She has also participated in group exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto (2016); Centre Pompidou-Merz (2017); and SFMOMA, San Francisco (2016). Kawauchi is the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including the 27th Kimura Ihei Photography Award; the International Centre of Photography Infinity Award; and an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.
