Paris Photo 2026: Jyrki Siukonen:, Kenji Nakahashi, and Iwao Yamawaki

MIYAKO YOSHINAGA is pleased to present Hand in Hand, a new body of photographic sculptures by Finnish artist Jyrki Siukonen (b. 1959), in dialogue with selected works by Japanese artists Kenji Nakahashi (1947-2017) and Iwao Yamawaki (1898-1987), at Paris Photo 2026 in the Voices sector. Centered on Siukonen's innovative exploration of photographic imagery, the presentation examines the interplay of light, gesture, and materiality, with the human hand as a recurring visual motif.

Long recognized as one of Finland's leading sculptors, Siukonen has developed a multidisciplinary practice encompassing sculpture, installation, drawing, and writing. His recent incorporation of photographic imagery marks a significant new direction in his artistic career, opening a dialogue between photography, sculpture, and the material object.

In this new series, Siukonen employs found imagery of hands-humanity's most fundamental tools. Through layering, multiple exposures, and combinations with everyday materials, he poetically transforms these images into an imagined tactile realm in which forms and gestures alternately emerge and recede. The hand, both an instrument of creation and a vehicle of human expression, becomes a compelling subject through which Siukonen investigates the relationship between physical presence and its photographic trace.

Of particular significance is Siukonen's homage to William Henry Fox Talbot, one of photography's early pioneers, whose nineteenth-century photogenic drawings were made by placing objects directly onto light-sensitive paper without a camera. Reflecting on these foundational experiments, Siukonen revisits photography's relationship to light, touch, and the physical object. His photographic sculptures extend this inquiry into three dimensions, blurring distinctions between image and object, presence and absence, and the tangible and the immaterial.

Siukonen's work enters into dialogue with Kenji Nakahashi, who moved from Japan to New York in 1973 and developed a conceptually driven practice encompassing photography and other media. In his A Cut-Out Sky series, the charged interplay of voids and silhouettes suspends the gaze in a liminal space between presence and absence. A highlight of the presentation is a group of ten unique experimental darkroom prints from Nakahashi's A Cut Out Sky series, offering a rare glimpse into his creative process and his exploration of photographic possibilities beyond conventional representation.

Iwao Yamawaki, a pioneering Japanese photographer and architect who studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1930 to 1932, approached photography through the modernist exploration of form, light, and space. His Bauhaus-influenced photographs define their subjects through light and shadow, rendering them as ephemeral structures. His sensitivity to the sculptural qualities of photographic imagery finds a particular affinity with Siukonen's investigation of light and materiality.

Although separated by generations and cultural experiences, the three artists share an interest in transforming familiar forms through photography. The recurring motif of the hand provides a visual thread, while their distinct approaches to layering, negative space, and light reveal photography's expressive possibilities beyond straightforward representation. Taken together, their works propose photography as a threshold-one that captures and holds the visible in time and space, yet remains on the verge of dissolution.

As Paris Photo celebrates the Bicentennial of Photography in 2026, Hand in Hand offers a timely reflection on the medium's origins and its continuing evolution. Siukonen's contemporary homage to early cameraless imagery, together with Nakahashi's experimental darkroom prints and Yamawaki's modernist investigations, connects the invention and material history of photography with its expanding possibilities as an artistic medium.

Miyako Yoshinaga has worked with Siukonen for more than two decades, beginning with his first New York solo exhibition in 2002, followed by exhibitions in 2004 and 2019. Recognizing the significance of his new photographic explorations, Yoshinaga initiated this project to introduce this development in his practice to an international audience. Paris Photo's Voices sector provides an ideal context for this presentation.

About MIYAKO YOSHINAGA

Founded in New York in 1999, MIYAKO YOSHINAGA specializes in contemporary art and photography, with particular expertise in Japanese and Asian artists. Following twenty-five years of gallery exhibitions, the business now operates as a private art dealership and advisory, working internationally with artists, estates, collectors, and institutions. MIYAKO YOSHINAGA has participated regularly in Paris Photo since 2017.

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