Baliki Kaplica

Artist Namiko Kitaura, from her website: Kangal Baliki Kaplica, Turkey: a tourist, riddled with a dermatitis branded incurable by western medicine, bathes in a hot spring and is miraculously cured. Diseased flesh is eaten away by magical Baliki fish, exposing new skin to sunlight and nutrient-rich spring water. An epic healing process begins...

Artist Namiko Kitaura went to Baliki Kaplica expecting something mystical, spiritual, magical even. Images of transcendental healing immediately sprang to mind - of diseased skin being renewed, rendered beautiful once more, schools of tiny magical fish swimming in a pool of holy water. In the end, the experience was something far more earthbound, human and humbling. Elements of healing seemed far more on the level of psyche, a healing on an emotional landscape rather than on a physical one.

Namiko Kitaura was born in Tokyo in 1977. She has had experience as a freelance photographer in Tokyo/ London / Paris, and as an artist in residence at Fabrica, the Benetton communication research centre in Italy. She produces distinctive images with a strong, personal voice. The implied Romanticism within her works is both abstract and absolute. The images contemplate each other sensually, with a sense of graceful motion suspended in a non-temporal framework. She aims to visualize the almost invisible aspects of the human condition that lie below the physical, and their juxtaposition: passion in depression, comfort in sadness, tranquility in chaos and beauty in ugliness.

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