Bio of Tetsugo HYAKUTAKE
Tetsugo Hyakutake was born in Japan in 1975 and now resides in Philadelphia where he is currently pursuing a Master's Degree of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. After working for Fujifilm Imaging in Japan, Hyakutake first moved to Philadelphia to attend the University of the Arts where he won the Promising Artist Award in 2005. He has also received the Society for Photographic Education Mid-Atlantic Region Scholarship Award (2005) and the Shades of Paper Award sponsored by Innova Paper for two consecutive years (2005 & 2006).
In his "Pathos and Irony: Industrial Still-Life in Japan" photographic series of factories, plants and other industrial buildings taken in his home country, he expresses the inherent duality of industrialization by addressing its ironic beauty. While there is no visual evidence of human life, the structures in his photographs cannot be stripped of the humanity that surrounds them, as Hyakutake's work is also a tribute to those who toiled to make it possible for Japan to become an economic superpower after World War II. His work is fueled by history and societal issues that are interspersed with his own personal experiences, such as growing up in Japan, one of the largest industrial nations in the world.
In his "Pathos and Irony: Industrial Still-Life in Japan" photographic series of factories, plants and other industrial buildings taken in his home country, he expresses the inherent duality of industrialization by addressing its ironic beauty. While there is no visual evidence of human life, the structures in his photographs cannot be stripped of the humanity that surrounds them, as Hyakutake's work is also a tribute to those who toiled to make it possible for Japan to become an economic superpower after World War II. His work is fueled by history and societal issues that are interspersed with his own personal experiences, such as growing up in Japan, one of the largest industrial nations in the world.