Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome writer and photographer Richard Oyama, living in Thailand, with the photograph Weeping Statue, Ombra Cafe. This black and white image, taken at a cafe in Chiang Mai, Thailand, is a study in textural contrast. A sculpted bust of a young woman sits on a table, surrounded by various types of foliage, some boldly variegated, some dense and feathery. The contrast between shaped stone and natural plant foliage is accentuated by a rose sculpted onto her shoulder, but the most striking feature is the streaking of moisture across her face and bosom, which resembles tears. The sculptor probably did not intend or plan this effect, but the artwork interacts with the weather and humidity in a delightful way. The melancholy of her expression and the play of the moisture recall funerary works in cemeteries and create a thoughtful, haunting mood.
View Weeping Statue, Ombra Cafe in Synkroniciti’s “Haunting” issue, Vol. 6, No. 4, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Richard Oyama’s poems, stories and essays have appeared in Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry, The Nuyorasian Anthology, Breaking Silence, Dissident Song, A Gift of Tongues, About Place, Konch Magazine, Pirene’s Fountain, Tribes, Malpais Review, Anak Sastra, Buddhist Poetry Review and other literary journals. The Country They Know (Neuma Books 2005) is his first collection of poetry. He has a M.A. in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Currently retired, Oyama taught at California College of Arts in Oakland, University of California at Berkeley and University of New Mexico.