“The captivating tableaus exude a sense of tension, melancholy, and a quiet unease. Each image from Japan Diaries exists as if it were a still taken from a noir Japanese film, each solitary figure yearning for something unknown.” Glenn O’Brien wrote of the Formento’s series Japan Diaries.
In winter of 2018, BJ and Richeille returned to Japan but this time focused on channeling the artists Hokusai and Hiroshige and asked the question of what Mt. Fuji means to them. “We consider Japan our spirit place and are always yearning to come back and go deeper in our exploration of the culture and the landscape. This new work moved us out of the city of Tokyo and into the countryside. We wanted to live under the ever changing appearance of Mt. Fuji and experience its burning energy. Creating psychologically evocative narratives with our Japanese women as they played out an imagined life under the strength of the mountain and beyond the edge of the frame.”
