As an internationally renowned Japanese digital photographic artist, Eriko Kaniwa is immersed in the contraposition of modern technological life within a centuries-old tradition of respect for (and indeed, worship of) nature. Ancient Shinto beliefs in the divinity of nature collide in Japan with the daily reality of an advanced global and technology-driven mass consumer society on its way to exterminating the very life on earth from which civilization has arisen so slowly and painfully over the ages.

It is to this dichotomy which Kaniwa directs her attention, via the skillful development of photographic imagery through digital manipulation, resulting in a hybrid art form which at once speaks to the viewer’s heart and emotions while simultaneously reminding us of the power of technology to radically alter both our perceptions as well as the natural order of things.

The contradictions and paradoxes of this symbiotic relationship - dare we call it ectoparasitic? - allow us to understand Kaniwa’s concept of the “Texture of Absurdity” which forms one context for this work. The more we study her imagery from this perspective, the clearer we may hear her thoughts.