Naomi Nakazato
"Void Study 5 (graft)" 2024,
screenprint on seaweed, pigment transfer on kozo, polyurethane, acrylic on plexiglass, aluminum, corrugated polypropylene, blood 20.75 x 16.75 x 1.375 in
Void Study (conbini) 2023, screenprint on plexiglass, concrete, urethane, ceramic tiles, chrysanthemums grafted with aluminum tape 12 x 14.25 x 8.125 in
Memory Bank, Waiting Room 2024,
screenprint and aluminum leaf on canvas panel in artist's frame
23.25 x 17.25 x 2.5 in
Flowers for All Occasions 2023,
screenprint and aluminum leaf, canvas mounted on panel
20.5 x 16.5 x 1.5”
Kiku 2023,
screenprint, aluminum leaf on panel
21.1 x 17 x 1.5 in
Transducer (kotsuage) 2024,
screenprint on canvas mounted on panel, seaweed on panel, hydrocal
44.7 x 28.2 x 4.7 in
Organ Reading (hana sonae) 2024,
solvent transfers on kozo, screenprint on aluminum leaf on panel
60 x 48 x 2.75 in
Pillow Chant 2023,
graphite and acrylic on canvas, fiberglass, aluminum leaf, salt
36 x 24 x 9 in
bua.ni.tasu (mono no aware) 2024,
aluminum leaf on polyethylene, aquaresin, screenprint on plexiglass, acrylic, salt, seaweed, polyurethane, chrysanthemums 29.5 x 25 x 22 in
Both Names 2024,
solvent transfer on mulberry, polyurethane, and hydrocal in artist's frame 28.25 x 17.5 x 2.5 in
“As a Japanese-American artist, my multidisciplinary, materials-based practice employs the plastic syntax of language and landscapes and their artificially relative perspectives to describe the fragmentary in-between of my biracial experience.
My work enacts a faulty kind of translation, particularly the mechanical transference of images and their matrices, to scrutinize notions of authenticity and interpolate lapses in fluency as an emblem of belonging. Driven by acts of orientation and observation, I apply various methods of rendering, printing, and arrangement to rupture sources and dismantle the spatial politics of maps and representations of nature. The use of specific materials tasked with demarcating and aligning are instead prized for their unintended, residual qualities–yielding images, objects, and sounds that are stacked, warped, and dissonant. In embracing disruptions of uncooperative mark-making and glitches in mimicry, this sacrosanct of potential allows space for temporal memories, familial archives, and rituals of uneven synthesis to crystalize.
Seeking to materialize the fullness of a mutable and inefficient language, the transparency layer palimpsest of my work registers latent points within an intermediary framework to merge a mercurially close and unfamiliar self.”