Formento & Formento (the husband and wife team BJ Formento and Richeille Formento) are best known for their ability to condense the spirit of a time and place in perfectly staged scenarios of melancholic beauty. In the fall of 2013, Formento & Formento went to Japan for their newest ongoing project, Japan Diaries. Like in former projects the images are vaguely set in the 1950s, but at the same time charged with associations from Edo woodblock prints the photographs of Nobuyoshi Araki and the films of Wong Kar-Wai.
The highly staged and hauntingly beautiful images are dark, intense and irresistible seductive. Like frames from an unknown nostalgic Japanese film, frozen in a captivating cirle with no beginning and no end.
“It’s fascinating to immerse oneself in this ancient culture that has only been open to the rest of the world since the 1850’s. The many underlying tones, subcultures and characteristics are unique to Japan and its people. We find ourselves in a floating world of emotional, psychological and physical potential, eager to express our interpretation as foreigners in a very foreign land.” —BJ Formento
A selection of images from The Japan Diaries will be on display at The Fahey/Klein Gallery
July 24, 2014 through August 30, 2014
Reception for the Artists: Thursday, June 24