Irezumi
Noah Gallagher
Irezumi is not decoration. The full-body suits documented here represent years of sitting with a single artist, returning session after session until something complete emerges. Most take a decade. Every element carries meaning, every composition deliberate, each suit a visual language built over time.
These portraits were made in the outer suburbs of Tokyo, through an introduction from Ken, a photographer working inside this world. Yokochan and Ishijimakai are two of the people I stayed in contact with afterward. Irezumi has long existed outside of what people assume it to be, its associations shifting across centuries, across class, across meaning.
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Noah Gallagher
Noah Gallagher (b. 1998) is a photographer based in Sydney, Australia. Raised in the Northern Rivers of NSW, his work is shaped by a deep connection to place and energy, which carries into his practice. Focusing on capturing and portraying the energy present at the moment of taking an image, he moves between documentary, editorial, and raw portraiture, photographing people, landscapes, and cultural narratives with a composed yet instinctive sensibility.
