Marco Bettoni’s striking new body of work is quite a departure from the hugely successful ‘Tokyo Lights’ series but equally compelling.

Also created in Japan, the ‘Sky Drawing Koinobori’ series is Bettoni’s own interpretation of landscape photography as he fuses together classical Japanese landscape with close-up images of the ‘Koinobori’, a carp-shaped wind sock traditionally flown in Japan to celebrate Children’s Day, which the country celebrates on 5th May every year. The result is almost abstract, depending on how much of the Koinobori is shown. Reasons for Bettoni creating this series are partly based on personal experience, and to…

Marco Bettoni’s striking new body of work is quite a departure from the hugely successful ‘Tokyo Lights’ series but equally compelling.

Also created in Japan, the ‘Sky Drawing Koinobori’ series is Bettoni’s own interpretation of landscape photography as he fuses together classical Japanese landscape with close-up images of the ‘Koinobori’, a carp-shaped wind sock traditionally flown in Japan to celebrate Children’s Day, which the country celebrates on 5th May every year. The result is almost abstract, depending on how much of the Koinobori is shown. Reasons for Bettoni creating this series are partly based on personal experience, and to challenge the traditional rules of photography.

Bettoni’s exceptionally beautiful photographic studies explore the artist’s obsession with life in Tokyo, particularly the paradox of one of the world’s biggest and busiest cities having a centre that is empty and quiet.

In his ‘Tokyo Lights’ series, the entire city turns around this central site, which is both forbidden and indifferent to the mass of Tokyo’s population, and contains a royal residence concealed beneath foliage and protected by moats.

Bettoni uses Tokyo taxi signs, the blurred lights of speeding cars, and lightbox constructions, to convey the sense of a frenetic urban pace that is both apart and inseparable from its traditional core.

Dramatic and compelling, this work was discribed by art critic Guy Brett as: ‘Beautiful: calm amid chaos.’

Marco Bettoni is a Camberwell MA graduate who, over the past few years, has exhibited at Galleria Casati, Bergamo, Riverside Studios, and Platform London; as well as at Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Galleria Elvira Carreras in Madrid, Dieci.due(10.2!) Gallery, Milan and Galerie Artcurial, Paris.

The artist’s work is now in the British collection at Matrix Chambers, alongside work by Julian Opie and Cornelia Parker. The Tate Gallery has also recognised Bettoni’s practise and his catalogue is now available as a reference in their archives. A series of Marco’s ‘Tokyo Lights’ is also in the Virgin Atlantic collection.