Kei Ito, Under My Skin #1, 2020

Kei Ito is an East Coast-based conceptual photographer and installation artist currently working in Baltimore. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016 with an MFA in Photography, following a BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2014. Ito has exhibited nationally in solo and group exhibitions. His most recent solo exhibition, Atomic Sentence, was held at the Harmony Hall Regional Center in DC. His work has been featured in magazines such as BmoreArt and Hyperallergic, and he has recently won the Denis Roussel Fellowship from The Center for Fine Art Photography.

Ito’s unique approach to photography does not include a camera. Instead, he exposes light-sensitive materials to sunlight to create an x-ray-like print that recalls the history of the nuclear tragedy in Hiroshima. Specifically, Ito’s practice draws on his grandfather’s experience of the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. He intertwines this past experience with his contemporary moment, expanding on the dialogue of nuclear matters in today’s politics. Ito remembers his grandfather telling him the day the bomb was dropped “...was like hundreds of suns lighting up the sky.” Those words pervade Ito’s body of work, and he often uses the sun in his work as both a symbol of the bombing and a natural photographic medium.

Under My Skin #1 is a powerful abstract representation of the physical effects of nuclear warfare. The work makes use of unique materials to detail how the scarcity of basic medicine after the bomb left survivors to treat their burns with oils and honey they found lying around. The “Under My Skin” series represents a shift in Ito’s work from the sun-exposed C-print photograms to the more physical and gestural use of natural materials to create an almost paint-like print.

Stamp Gallery, 2021