Surreal Objects - Journals

Michiko Kon

‘Michiko Kon's array of fish scales, feathers, eyes, heads, flowers insects, dead fowl, raw fish, and gelatinous material are all assembled in such a way as to render themselves in transformation as a new and discrete object. ‘

Michiko Kon uses the likes of raw fish, dead animals, pins and eyes in her photographic works, creating/transforming them into new more desireable objects.

I think what attracts me to Kon’s images the most is the way the elements and objects work together. Having raw fish, heads and eyes as still life objects, is recognisably a disgusting concept, however I feel these images have a certain amount of beauty in them in which the original objects would not have offered. Combining and transforming these elements into surreal objects is almost like giving them a new life, a sort of resurrection. A subject which Kon is most comfortable in - life and death.

Kon’s friend died when she was younger and since then she has been frightened and at the same time fascinated by death.  The article in Afterimage explains her curiosity about why a body that once existed eventually disappears from the earth. I think what distracts from the gruesome subject is the way the pieces of the image react to each other creating whole new rather beautiful objects.

 Although possibly uncomfortable to look at, I think there is a very thin line drawn between the grotesque and the beautiful in Kon's images.

Sources:

European Photography v. 18 (Spring/Summer 1997) p. 54-61

Afterimage 26 no1 supp 1-12 Jl/Ag '98