Born in Sapporo in 1979, Hiroki Inoue graduated from Sapporo Minami High School and Niigata
University and completed coursework at Tohoku Gakuin University Law School before returning
to Hokkaido and taking up landscape photography. He gradually narrowed his interest to foxes,
and pursuing them across impressive landscapes. In 2016 he became the first artist from Japan
to win a First Prize, in the Nature Category, in the National Geographic Travel Photographer of the
Year contest.
He continues to energetically document the landscapes and animals of Hokkaido,
with cooperation from Air Do, the airline serving Hokkaido and Honshu. His published photo work
includes “A Wild Fox Chase” which raises questions about humankind’s terms of engagement
with nature.
The collection “Follow Me - Fuyu no Kitsune” was published in 2017. In February
2017, Inoue was a subject of the Jonetsu Tairiku weekly television program which profiles
dynamically interesting people from various fields.
The foxes that survive on the open land of Hokkaido are most beautiful in winter, when their coats are fluffiest. Their forms are still more splendid amid the world of pure whiteness. The snowy landscapes are a gorgeous sight, and the foxes that live there are a part of the light and land. This exhibition showcases some of the most poetically beautiful work from Hiroki Inoue’s tireless tracking of the kitakitsune, or Ezo red fox.
An expansive snowy landscape unobtrusively punctuated by a fox, a close-up of a fox gazing steadily back at the camera, a sheer white snowscape made vibrant by gracefully dashing foxes with thick swishing tails…. The form of the fox is all the more striking as each of these works is set on a light-drenched snow mantle, and they are arrayed in a white-walled gallery space.
It is not that Inoue takes photos of foxes, rather that he shoots landscapes made fascinating precisely because of the presence of the winter foxes.
The original point of view and method of approach in Inoue’s photography have won high acclaim, including a First Prize in the prestigious National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year 2016 contest.
Displayed here are the National Geographic prize-winning photo and works that have appeared in books as well as eight photos never previously exhibited. (14 Large size printed works, 1 TV)