Juxtapoz Magazine – Kensuke Koike: Nothing Added, Nothing Removed

Whether Kensuke Koike is tearing an image to pieces, or neatly shredding it into tiny ribbons, there is precision in his method. The mad scientist, a Dr. Frankenstein carefully dissecting and reassembling the bodies of the dead, he creates new life from neglected images. Seeing bounty in the abundance of discarded ephemera, Koike rescues photographs, postcards, and other spurned items he finds at flea markets and brings them home to be reimagined and reanimated in his laboratory. “I deeply believe,” he says, “that every image has the possibility of having a new birth.” The artist refers to this work as Single Image Processing because there is only one rule: nothing can be added or removed. Anything else goes. “The rule is not a lifetime rule, of course,” he explains, “but sometimes, instead of going the easy and secure way, working under a very restricting rule can open another approach.”