Tomio Seike, born in Tokyo 1943, has exhibited globally and is widely recognised as a contemporary master working in a classical style. This exclusively online exhibition, the second of its kind for Hamiltons, witnesses the blend of two bodies of Seike's work, Waterscapes and Nude Untitled.
Initially an accident of fate, Waterscapes developed from a chance photograph taken on a foggy day at Barton Bridge - Waterscapes #1, 1996 - and developed at Seike's customary own unhurried pace. Although his work emanates a calm serenity, we must not be misled, as Seike's work is habitually more considered and intricate than a passing assessment might first suggest. Water and reflection play a predominant role in his earlier work and many of the ideas - for example the Seine, pools of rainwater and reflective windows seen in his Paris series - reoccur in Waterscapes. Seike deliberately explores the traditions and technicalities of the photographic medium; with compositional contrasts, atmosphere and with light and dark.
A similarly measured approach is echoed in Nude Untitled, yet, the link between these two bodies of work runs far deeper than technicalities alone; he creates an atmosphere which imbues each image with mystery, longing, and a sense of quiet wonderment. Again we witness an ethereal, almost haunting other-worldliness; a similar vein of peace and tranquility. Seike is a master at capturing the quiet moments in life that silently pass, the ordinary moments that so often go unnoticed. Towards the end of the eighties when Seike completed his first series of nudes, which were exhibited at Hamiltons in 1989, he decided to extend the series - shooting in Paris and the UK - experimenting predominantly with abstraction and size.
