A performer raising one hand through smoke, lit from behind by deep stage light.
Photographs · 2018—2026 Portfolio N°04 · Silver & light

RENOkada

I photograph the pause between things — the breath before a performance, the last hour of a city, the room after everyone has left.

B. 1989, TokyoSilver gelatin
Enter the work
Untitled (Smoke Study) · 2024 35mm · Silver gelatin print · 1/12 Scroll ↓
01 / Selected work

Six studies in light.

All works are available as limited silver gelatin prints. Enquiries for editions and commissions are welcome.

Black and white portrait of Ren Okada in a dark jacket.
Ren Okada, New YorkPh. Mika Sato
02 / About

The pause is the photograph.

I am interested in what happens just before and just after the thing we came to see.

Ren Okada is a photographer working between Tokyo and New York. Trained in architecture in Kyoto, he came to photography through a long study of empty buildings and the people who leave them.

His work has appeared in Aperture, The New Yorker and IMA. He shoots slowly, prints in the darkroom, and believes a photograph should feel like a memory you did not know you had.

2026Quiet HoursSolo exhibition · Taka Ishii GalleryTokyo
2024SilverGroup exhibition · ICPNew York
2022The Long WaySolo exhibition · Polka GalerieParis
2021Aperture Portfolio PrizeSelected artistNew York
Selected
clients
  • Aesop
  • Hermès
  • Kvadrat
  • The New Yorker
  • Nike
  • Tekla
03 / Contact

Let's make
something quiet.

studio@renokada.com Write to me ↗

Represented by Neighbour Gallery, New York.
Commissions and print enquiries for 2027 are now open.

Selected work ↑ Tokyo 35.6762° N
New York 40.7128° N
REN OKADA — Selected work 01 / 06

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