Admired for his sensual photographs of exotic flowers and scorned for his controversial pictures of young women tied up with ropes in the “kinbaku” style of sexual bondage, artist Nobuyoshi Araki is legendary in Japan and notorious worldwide. A prolific photographer, Araki has published more than 350 books of his photographs and over the last decade has turned to embellishing his black-and-white pictures with acrylic paint to add expressionistic fervor. Currently on view at Galerie Bob van Osrouw in Zurich through January 29, Araki’s erotic, mixed media PaINtings provide both pleasure and pain, while paradoxically setting feminism back about 100 years. Click through for a gallery of images.
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich
Nobuyoshi Araki, From the Series PaINting, 2010, acrylic on B/W photography, unique. Courtesy Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich