كوهي ناوا
名和晃平
КОХЕЙ НАВА

force

source: designaside

Kohei Nawa, giapponese di Osaka, è un giovane artista che sperimenta con sfere di vetro trasparente, ricoprendo e inglobando i più svariati soggetti, dai giocattoli agli animali impagliati. Lo scopo, è quello di alterare grazie alla rifrazione della luce attraverso il vetro, la percezione visiva delle spettatore. L’oggetto rimane tale, ma ciò che verrà percepito dal nostro sguardo sarà deformato e modificato, non è l’oggetto che cambia, ma il punto di vista che ne attua la trasformazione. Kohei Nawa, che ha recentemente esposto anche in Italia, ha al suo attivo numerose mostre in Asia e Stati Uniti e la partecipazione alle più importanti fiere internazionali.
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source: artandculture

Kohei Nawa was born in Osaka, Japan in 1975. He graduated from the kyoto city university of art, ph.d. specializing in fine art, sculpture where he now resides. Known for his ideas of ‘skin’ and ‘cells’. he is known for his pixcell series, the ‘skins’ of objects such as taxidermied animals, sneakers, musical instruments, toys and fake fruit taking on new phases. Countless transparent glass beads encase these objects, forming a new interface between these things and us. The glass beads are ‘cells’ that skew our tactile memories and conventional visual notions we have of these objects.
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source: japantimes

The lecture theatre is brimful of bright-eyed people listening to a lecture by Kohei Nawa — an artist considered by many to be at the forefront of contemporary art in Japan. The public lecture offers insight into the design and production process of the often complex and intricate work on display in his current solo exhibition titled “Synthesis” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

Nawa grew up in the Kansai region and studied art locally and in London. He later spent time in both the New York and Berlin art scenes, which helped him find direction and inspiration for his work. Since his first solo exhibition in Osaka in 2000, he has quickly built both a domestic and international reputation for himself at the relatively young age of 36. Yet, it is in his necessarily large art “factory” named Sandwich in the suburbs of Kyoto that he brainstorms and creates his often grandiose work, which could comfortably sit alongside pieces by Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons.

His distinctive focus on choice of mediums, which range from polyurethane foam and silicon oil to stuffed toys he buys on the Internet and covers in perspective-defying glass beads, helps create