Tomohide ikeya biography sample

Solo Exhibition. Group Exhibition. My work explores "control" as a fundamental human desire. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we harbor an impulse to control everything that surrounds us—nature, life, others.

Tomohide Ikeya (b.

But what does this desire ultimately bring us? Before becoming a photographer, I worked as a chef in an Italian restaurant. We are constantly eating death. Every day, countless plants and animals are cut up and cooked, and people consume them without a second thought. This reality—that one life is sustained by many deaths—forms the foundation of my artistic perspective.

My encounter with scuba diving gave me a new perspective. In the underwater world, where water, light, and living beings interweave beautifully, I was captivated by water's essence—indispensable to humans yet never submitting or conforming to our will. Expressing "control" through this relationship with water became the origin point of my work as a photographer.

My works are born from calculated chance.

Fascinated by the duality of water, its life-giving yet life-destroying presence, I am inspired by it and explore its philosophical aspects.

In the "BREATH" series, technical precision merges with unexpected spontaneity in the extreme conditions of underwater shooting without oxygen tanks. Together with my models, I face the deepest fears and challenge the limits of life, seeking balance between control and chance. In the "MOON" series, I poetically express the boundary between life and death through the intersection of moonlight reflected on water and the human body.

Floating hair symbolizes the continuity of life, while bodies drifting like dancers underwater evoke souls wandering between this world and the next.