By Yasu Matsumoto

Piles, a series of photographs by Yasu Matsumoto, is a glowing and reverent reverie to the forest and from the forest. The prints are toned in the essence of the forest itself: soil, leaves, branches. Through the medium of earth and bark they reveal the invisible and express the incomprehensible, speaking to us of the memory of the trees and the deep rhythm of time passing.

piles

As I stepped deep into the ancient forest, my instinct awakened, and the whole space started spinning around.
In the embrace of deep nature, I entered an unusual state of mind in which I felt both peace and fear at the same time.

The forest, which was one immense being at first impression became to be uneven as I spent more time.
​I sensed a sort of gap in the space, and such unevenness felt to make a rhythm to make the forest alive.
These works are the expression of such unusual phenomena that I think is created by the everlasting accumulation, or piles of time that are embedded in the process of forest growing.

Images made with wet plate collodion are enlarged, cut in pieces, and toned (boiled) in the soup of forest’s essence such as soil, leaves and branches.
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山の奥深く、誰もいない原始の森に踏み込んだ時、眠っていた僕の原始の感覚は目覚め出し、空間自体が渦巻き出す。
一つだった森という生命体は、その始まり以来のそこに根付く生命の数だけそれぞれのスピードで成長を積み重ね、それによって空間にはムラが出来、不均衡な全体のバランスは森にリズムを生み出し、動き、永遠に成長のプロセスを積み重ねていく。

本作は、森が経てきた果てしない時間の積み重ねによって形成された不均衡さや圧倒的なパワー、そしてそこで僕が感じた、癒しと恐れといった相反する感覚が同居する不思議な現象を表現したシリーズです。
湿板写真で撮影されたイメージは暗室で引き延ばされ、細かいピースにカットされたのち、それぞれの撮影地で採取した土、葉、枝といった森のエッセンスによってランダムに染められ（煮込まれ）、再び一つの森に再構築されています。

-Yasu Matsumoto

Yasu Matsumoto studied at San Francisco Art Institute as a Photography Major with Linda Connor as a mentor. He now works as a Tokyo-based fine art photographer showing works internationally. With 8×10″ camera and Gelatin Silver / Wet plate collodion, the theme for his art is to “capture the invisible.” You can see more of his work at one-big-tree.com and on Instagram at yasumatsumoto