EXPLORING HER admitted fear of death with the meditative absorption of a child worrying an unhealed wound, Michiko Kon creates photographic tableaux that infuse the term "still life" with renewed meaning.

Working primarily in the black-and-white format of silver gelatin prints, Kon brings her images to the forefront of a dark and shadowy, shallow depth of field. Whether she uses a reflective, minimalist surface or surrounds the object with rich brocades or wildly printed fabric, the ground serves to underscore the texture of her created memento mori.

The seduction of a perfect, dewy rose packs a sudden recoil: a glassy stare from the dead quail's head tucked into the bloom's center, its sharp, reptilian claws where a florist might arrange baby's breath. The fleeting nature of life's fully realized beauty inevitably brings us face-to-face with death.

This attraction/repulsion dynamic is especially pronounced in Kon's painstakingly manipulated compositions incorporating fish parts. There is apparently nothing that she can't fashion out of scales, fins, tentacles or shells, displaying a dexterity that a four-star sushi chef would envy. A cornerstone of the Japanese diet, seafood supplies a ready metaphor for what Kon calls "the close presence of life and death." Simultaneously, the food theme questions everything consumed without a second thought.