小林茂太 | Shigeta KOBAYASHI

https://www.shigetakobayashi.com
info@shigetakobayashi.com

Artist Statement
My creative practice is rooted in an interest in the "traces" etched into matter by the accumulation of time. Drawing from my background in civil engineering, I perceive geological "outcrops"—sites where layers of time are laid bare within the landscape—as the primary field of my research and production. Through this lens, I have reinterpreted photography as a physical "receptor" that captures the structure and undulations of a subject, rather than a mere optical record. My perspective, which regards even the collision of light as a form of trace, has evolved beyond the framework of optical recording. It has deepened into a more direct exploration of "contact," such as pressing a support directly against rock surfaces to capture their form. The core of my inquiry lies in how the fact of this contact can be fixed upon the boundary where the support and the subject contend with one another. Through this cycle of contemplation and experimentation, I seek to quietly document the certainty of material existence and the tension that flows between nature and human intervention.
物質に刻まれた「痕跡」への関心が、制作の核にある。土木工学を専攻した背景から、地質学用語である「露頭」を、時間の集積が風景の中に剥き出しになる現場と捉えている。そこでのリサーチを元に制作を続ける過程で、写真を、対象の構造を物理的に受け止める「受容体」であると再解釈した。光の衝突すら一種の痕跡と見なす視点は、現在、光学的記録の枠組みを超え、直接的な「接触」の試行へと深化している。接触の事実をいかに定着させられるか。その行為を思考し、試行することで、物質がそこに在ることの確かさを静かに記述していく。

Biography
Shigeta Kobayashi(b. 1985) is a photographer currently based in Saitama, Japan. He graduated from Chuo university with a degree in civil engineering and worked for a commercial photography studio before becoming a freelance photographer in 2014. Although his initial focus was on commercial photography, he began to think deeply about his personal work. Around this time period, he started to learn the artworks of photographers such as Michael Schmidt, Robert Adams, and Masaru Tatsuki, and it led him to develop his interest in fine art photography. In 2018, he decided to pursue his career as an artist. In 2020, he exhibited cairn, a body of work which marked a major stepping stone of his career. The work was created with a theme which investigated to confirm his own identity, which had become unstable after the birth of his child with his wife, during a month-long residency in Iceland, and through the physical act of "walking" in an unknown place, he felt that the medium of photography remains as proof of his existence. He published the photobook of 300 copies. This work became the impetus for his current works, in which he focuses on the traces of nature and human activities that appear in spaces. Through his researches into the geological events and human activities on the land, he attempts to create images that can be only imagined otherwise. He has been involved in both public and private programs, such as The Kumonodaira Mountain Hut Artist-in-Residence program at the mountain lodge in the Japanese Northern Alps in 2022. He also launched books cairn, artist collective, with a graphic designer Koji Miyazoe, which carry his own photobooks and books that are designed by Miyazoe at art book fairs and events.
1985年新潟県生まれ、現在は埼玉を拠点に活動している写真家である。大学では土木工学を専攻し、卒業後はコマーシャル写真スタジオに勤め、2014年からフリーランスの写真家として独立。当初は、それまで経験してきたことを活かし、コマーシャル写真に注力していたが、その過程で、自身の作品について深く考えるようになった。マイケルシュミットやロバートアダムス、田附勝などの多くの偉大な写真家の作品にふれることで、芸術写真に興味を持ち始め、2018年から作家活動を始めた。2020年に作家として大きく踏み出すことになった作品「cairn」を発表。この作品は、妻との間に子供を授かったことで不安定になった自身のアイデンティティを確かめることをテーマに制作。一人で約一ヶ月間、アイスランドに滞在し見知らぬ土地を「歩く」という身体的な行為を通して、写真というメディアが自身の存在証明のように残ることを感じた。また、写真集として300部を自費出版した。この作品がきっかけとなり現在は、空間に表出した自然や人間の活動の痕跡に着目し、その土地での地質的な出来事や人間の営みのリサーチを通して、想像することでしかうかがい知ることの出来ない物事について、写真を通してアプローチしている。また、2022年には、日本の北アルプスにある山荘で開催された雲ノ平山荘・アーティストインレジデンスに参加するなど、外部プログラムへの参加も積極的である。グラフィックデザイナーの宮添浩司氏と共にbooks cairnを立ち上げ、自身の写真集や制作において参照した写真集、また宮添氏が手掛けた作品集などを扱い、アートブックフェアなどに参加している。

Artist Residencies
2025 Nakanojo Biennale, Gunma, Japan
2022 Kumonodaira Mountain Hut Artist-in-Residence Program, Toyama, Japan

Solo Exhibitions
2025 plateau, LAG (LIVE ART GALLERY), Tokyo
2022 stratum, LIBRIS KOBACO, Fukuoka
2022 stratum, book obscura, Tokyo
2019 AURORA, BOOKS f3, Niigata
2019 AURORA, ondo kagurazaka, Tokyo

Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 Nakanojo Biennale 2025: International Contemporary Art Festival, Gunma, Japan
2025 Diffusion of Nature 2025: The Wavering Distance, GASBON METABOLISM, Yamanashi, Japan
2024 The Hillvale Photo Trophy, Hillvale Gallery, Victoria, Australia
2023 Diffusion of Nature 2023: Soil and Dream, WATOWA GALLERY, Tokyo / GASBON METABOLISM, Yamanashi, Japan

Publications (Artist Books)
2025 imprint matters, books cairn
2024 plateau, books cairn
2024 arawa-re 001, books cairn
2023 chi to, books cairn
2022 stratum, books cairn
2021 (Founded the independent label "books cairn")
2020 yoha, Self-published
2020 cairn, Self-published
2018 AURORA, Self-published

Education 2008 B.E. in Civil Engineering, Chuo University, Tokyo