KOHEI NAWA
b. 1975, JapanThe young Japanese artist Nawa Kohei works with sculpture and space under the concept of 'cell'. His concept of 'cell' is a combination of the word 'pixel', which defines the degree of digital precision, and the biological word 'cell'. The representative works from his PixCell series are the sculptural works in which clear beads cover things like taxidermy animals and everyday objects. The surface of the objects covered in beads seems magnified and distorted due to the light being refracted off each bead, and each bead suggests a separate unit, like an individual cell.
Kohei Nawa has rapidly risen to prominence as a leading contemporary artist in Japan. Kohei Nawa received his BFA, MFA, and Ph.d. in Fine Arts from the Kyoto City University of Art, and is currently Assistant Professor in Department of Fine Art at Kyoto University, and the director of the platform SANDWISH, a production house for art, design and architecture.
Kohei Nawa's art has been collected by prestigious art galleries and museums around the world, including theMuseum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Mori Art Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nawa had a solo exhibition in 2009 with funding from Hermés Foundation, and recently finished a successful large-scale solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. Nawa was named in the list of “50 Next Most Collectible Artists” by the American monthly art magazine Art + Auction in the June issue, 2012.
Courtesy Arario Gallery
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