A Sitting Beauty with Kimono, Maiko

A seated maiko in formal kimono presents one of Kotozuka's rare departures from architectural landscape into figure study. The maiko — the apprentice geisha who embodies Kyoto's most carefully preserved performance traditions — sits with the particular composed stillness of her training, her elaborate kimono spread around her. Kotozuka's treatment of the female figure brings the same attentiveness to color and surface he applies to temple architecture, treating the kimono's patterns with the care usually reserved for garden detail.