An excerpt from the portfolio of Sayuri Ichida in 1605 Magazine No.2 Illusion

Images: Sayuri Ichida

Based in Margate, United Kingdom, Sayuri Ichida (b. 1985, Fukoka, Japan) is a multi-disciplinary artist with a focus on photography. A graduate of Tokyo Visual Arts College with an MA in Photography Arts from the University of Westminster, she has exhibited at PhMuseum Lab in Bologna, IBASHO Gallery in Antwerp, Unseen Amsterdam, InCadaques International Photography Festival and numerous other galleries, fairs, private collections and museums. In 2023, Ichida was one of a handful of artists invited to be a part of Light Work’s celebrated artist-in-residence programme.

Ethereal. Nostalgic. Sayuri Ichida’s work feels simultaneously close and somehow far, far away. For the Japanese photographer, no memory, no corner of her life is off limits for artistic exploration. A sense of longing and timelessness are palpable in each of her images; she unravels deep emotions and the essence of self-identity. She dives deep into the subconscious. The human body becomes sculpture, and inanimate objects come alive in Ichida’s photographs. 

Though she began her career in the commercial photography industry (Ichida originally studied Fashion Photography at Tokyo Visual Arts College), she made a conscious shift toward art photography after only a couple of years. In a short but blazing few years, she gained acclaim for her touching, powerful images. Her book Absentee was selected as one of the ten best photobooks by the Prix Nadar Prize in 2022, and her work Ctrl Shift +J was shortlisted for both the Grand Prix Images Vevey 2023/2024 and the Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship 2023.

She was also awarded the Japan Photo Award for her series, Déjà Vu, in 2016, and a number of her works are housed in the collections of Museum Voorlinden in the Netherlands. Her photographs are beautiful, graceful; they hint at a rich interior life, at the strength and pull of memory.