Between Night and Day

Most of Sakiko Nomura’s (*1957) male models show a frail side, removed from any sense of masculinity. The naked bodies of her friends convey instead a humanity, a sad, bounded warmth reflected in the atmospheric nighttime light that is more cloaked than revealed. It is an artificial light that can itself become the subject of the photograph. It is an illumination that emphasizes the darkness, paying it respect, and protecting its secrets. The intimacy of the portraits of men resting in hotel beds carry themselves forward in the landscapes and city images, as they glow warmly and vitally out of the darkness. The unknown hours between morning and night appear to be preferred by Sakiko Nomura, who was a longtime assistant of the spectacular Nobuyoshi Araki, from whom she learned a very different, black and white, accentuated and drastic handling with the erotic. But she managed, albeit, to find her own pictorial language, which is disconnected from any superficial effect, and conveys a reflective melancholy of man’s being at the mercy of life and the passing of time. Sakiko Nomura’s images are impressions of peace in the twists of life, of the light between night and day, of the hopeful expectation of these and other coming changes. They are images of immense beauty that are enhanced through the vulnerability and momentariness of the model and the anonymous scenery.