I had seen a preying woman image in a photograph book, I don't clearly remember where the photo had been taken in, that showed me pieces of people's life in the region. Dry land, many farm animals, small flowers, a person who painting her house wall and others, turning a lot of pages, I saw the rich emotional life in this region and at the end of it, I faced that women. Closing eyes and prostrating herself, the women preyed in the photo. She appeared very pure, without calculating, and I was deeply moved by how clear and beautiful a human being can be when she prays from the depths of her own heart. I have never been able to forget her.

 The person who showed me the photograph book was just Kazuharu Enami. He found it while he had studied abroad, Italia, he was 43 years old, near the end of his stay there. I knew that Emami was an oil painter but after studying art in Italy—the homeland of oil painting—for one year, he let go of oil paintings. He said that discovering this book made him change his paintings.

 We all live in lands shaped by their own environments, cultures, and histories. Wherever we are from, these elements bring us both benefits and hardships. It is not easy for people to notice that what feels “ordinary” to them is, in fact, something unique to their land and culture. However, once we are given such an opportunity, scenes from our daily lives—things that may seem boring or unremarkable— are shifted dramatically. Due to the photographs teaching him the brilliant life in an environment like sand blowing, he focused on the field he was born in. As a result, his painting style were changed, and he began using various materials given by fields and cultures of his home country, Japan, to create his works.
 From the ordinary to sacred, twenty artworks by Kazuharu Enami have now arrived at my gallery. They may make you feel familiar, but we can't find the same things around us, it seems possible to find these, but it's not. So, there are atmospheres like nostalgic illusions in the art. As I looked at them one by one, I naturally remembered the beauty of the above woman. I felt that same beauty in Emami's art, it is clear, deep and very quiet. Intuitively, I realized that his art is just like 'prayer' in itself. When a human prays from the deepest inner space—perhaps there is the origin of his mentality and spirit—his abstract world could expand endlessly. And when we try to think about such profound things using language, we easily reach the limits of what words can express. It is like gazing toward infinity, it may have always no shapes, or like receiving endless sunlight with own two hands. I feel that such 'wordless things' flow quietly at the deepest core of Enami's art.

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KUJIRANOHONE GALLERY

Mikiko Iida, 2026.