Ariko Inaoka


Ariko Inaoka is a Japanese photographer, best known for her long-term project of photographing a pair of Icelandic twins. She is also the owner of Honke Owariya, a long-established soba restaurant in Kyoto.

Youth

Born in Kyoto in 1975, Inaoka went to a high school in San Diego from 1992 and studied at Parsons School of Design from 1995, graduating in 1999. She started working at magazines and catalogs in Paris, London, and Japan, mainly in fashion photography. She moved back to Tokyo in 2006.

Photography

Inaoka has worked as a fashion photographer. From 1998 to 2002 she worked on The Number after 10 with Claudia Hill In 2000, Photo District News named her one of the PDN/Kodak 30 under thirty Her earlier work was done under the single name Ariko.
Inaoka is known for her years-long photography of a pair of identical twins in Iceland, which she has called "the place for my creativity and inspiration." She first met Erna and Hrefna in 2006, but only started photographing them in 2009, when they were nine. She was drawn to the twins as a subject because of their "telepathic" connection. The photography continued until 2017.
Other subjects Inaoka has photographed include landscapes and travelers.

Restaurant ownership

Inaoka returned to Kyoto in 2011. She is the current and sixteenth owner of Honke Owariya, founded in 1465 and the oldest soba restaurant in Kyoto and perhaps the whole of Japan. She follows this tradition from her father, the fifteenth owner, and her grandfather, the fourteenth.

Exhibitions