Kekkai by Nobuyoshi Araki juxtaposes nudes with flora in Polaroid collages.
Araki’s Kekkai is a beautifully designed portfolio of 128 images, created by cutting and combining Polaroids of nudes and flowers, reanimating two of his core areas. This series follows Love on the Left Eye (2013–14) featuring photographs half-obscured with marker, dealing with the fate that he lost sight in his right eye.
Kekkai, a word of Buddhist origin, invokes the Buddhist concept of a magical barrier cordoning off a sanctum.
“When you lose something, you gain something else,” Araki recently remarked about his reduced vision. “I say to myself that I believe I should be able to see things differently.”
Kekkai was published (sold out) as a limited edition book object itself, with printed cards of all images placed within an acrylic black shaped box with a sliding clear cut lid. It act as a game, a visual presentation of Araki’s humor at play.
