Hiroshi Watanabe
2004
Omasa's Hand, Ena Bunraku

Gelatin silver print
10 x 10 in
 
Watermark Fine Art Photographs & Books (CLOSED)
(Alan Griffiths, 7 November 2025) Omasa’s Hand, Ena Bunraku focuses on a fragment—a puppet’s delicately carved hand emerging from layers of embroidered fabric. The photograph transforms this small gesture into an image of striking emotional resonance, evoking the unseen human presence that animates Bunraku’s wooden figures. In the play’s narrative, Omasa’s hand might signify tenderness, farewell, or devotion, but here, separated from the stage, it becomes a meditation on touch itself—the bridge between puppet and puppeteer, object and emotion. The shallow depth of field and soft monochrome palette heighten the tension between material and illusion, revealing the fragility of the handmade world from which these dramas arise. By isolating a single gesture, the photographer captures the essence of Bunraku’s artistry: how carved wood and cloth, guided by invisible hands, can embody the full range of human feeling.
 
LL/22629