{"id":77668,"date":"2023-08-03T13:25:47","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T04:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/papersky.jp\/?p=77668"},"modified":"2023-08-03T13:25:51","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T04:25:51","slug":"koji-nakazono","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/papersky.jp\/en\/koji-nakazono\/","title":{"rendered":"Painter. Koji Nakazono. Present. Toshiya Muraoka"},"content":{"rendered":"\nWork for graduation exhibition at Tokyo University of the Arts Koji Nakazono, Untitled, 2012, collection of Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The first time I saw paintings by Koji Nakazono was in 2018 at the Yokosuka Museum of Art\u2019s exhibition Koji Nakazono: On the Edge\u2014Places I Wanted to See. The complicated scattering of images didn\u2019t quite sit with me at first; they impressed me only as a child\u2019s doodling. But because I didn\u2019t yet appreciate his work, it stayed with me and kept coming back to mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when a friend and illustrator told me Nakazono was serious enough to attend preparatory art school, and then asked me for help making a book of Nakazono\u2019s memories, I decided to take on the project and write a critical biography. I asked Nakazono\u2019s mother to take me to the artist\u2019s grave, and with permission, set about interviewing people who knew him, including his classmates, his girlfriends, artists with whom he shared his studio, the proprietress of a pub where he had a part-time job, and Yuko Hasegawa, the director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, who was also a buyer of Nakazono\u2019s works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nakazono took up painting in the summer of his second year in high school and churned out nearly 600 artworks in the eight-year period up to his death at the age of 25. This colossal body of works is interlinked with the joy, anger, and sadness in his life. Nakazono\u2019s mentor at the Tokyo University of the Arts and fellow painter O Jun says. “The source of the art is the artist\u2019s breath, desire, and physicality; the process of creation is about applying physical pressure to this source material.” They say the art should be separated from the artist, and yet there\u2019s no denying that a solid connection exists between them. The more information I gathered, the firmer my conviction grew.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDress with an image of people shooting each other Koji Nakazono, Untitled, 2012, collection of Satoshi Shiraki and Michiyo Kamata<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Nakazono\u2019s passion since elementary school had been basketball, but he suddenly quit playing to attend preparatory art school and enrolled directly in the oil painting department at the Tokyo University of the Arts. His work for the graduation exhibition was purchased by Tomio Koyama, who then organized a solo show in his Tomio Koyama Gallery. Nakazono himself left home after graduation and set up a studio in Kitamatsudo (Chiba), then Omiya (Saitama), and finally Takamatsu (Kagawa, in the island of Shikoku), where he died. Each exhibition during this time won him ever greater critical acclaim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life as a painter, however, was not all smooth sailing. Nakazono struggled emotionally and at times felt depressed. He walked in the woods at night and sneaked into abandoned buildings and idled the time away until dawn. He craved a sense of fulfillment\u2014this promising artist who met an untimely demise. Just as he lived by his own standards, he also worked by his own standards. Nakazono let very few people watch him at work. Nevertheless, some say they know that he used his elbows, fingers, towels, and various other \u201cpaintbrushes\u201d to faithfully express his breath and desire. Nakazono\u2019s work is at once elaborate and impromptu, and more often than not, it\u2019s described in bodily terms. He himself has said in an interview that it\u2019s important for him to produce work in bulk. That just shows the prolific artist must have been brimming with breath, desire, and physicality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, what drove him to paint? One hazy answer to that question lies in the title of the exhibition on now at the Marugame Genichiro Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, in the city of Marugame, close to Takamatsu, where Nakazono spent his last years. The show presents some 220 works under the title Soulmate. Nakazono may have seemed confident about painting, but he was constantly searching for someone who understood his deep inner feelings. It was as if his creative process took him deep underwater, and he needed someone to recognize that he was down there.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOil painting produced in Takamatsu Koji Nakazono, Untitled, 2015, collection of Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Koji Nakazono: Soulmate is divided into several themes. A wall named \u201cCountless Sceneries,\u201d for instance, displays small-sized improvised works, focusing on the breadth of variation. \u201cPeople\u201d presents countless faces, some with only eyes or mouths like game characters, and others that blur the line between human and ghost.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPainting with Nakazono’s signature nested structure Koji Nakazono, Untitled, 2013, collection of sasanao<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
My favorite piece of all is one with distinct complex layers, from the series featured on the cover of Nakazono\u2019s book of paintings. This large work perfectly showcases Nakazono\u2019s signature nested structure, and the section itself, themed \u201cMultilayered Scenery,\u201d is also laid out in a nested structure, with new spaces created within the space to offer the experience of the multiple layers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the work, these layers are intricately piled and arranged on top of one another to bursting point. Up close, the viewer can make out small faces playfully scattered across the canvas. And when the viewer steps back and zooms out, a large face appears. Hearing that Nakazono outlined this large face first, I let out a sigh of admiration\u2014how bold! At the same time, I studied the meticulously stacked layers of color and thought I glimpsed his finer side. This work encapsulates the conflicting characters dwelling within Nakazono, doesn\u2019t it? It embraces his breath and desire, doesn\u2019t it? The moment I realized this, I was moved to tears. I had started out interviewing Nakazono\u2019s friends and acquaintances so that I can better understand the late artist. That process brought me closer to Nakazono, and finally, I met him face-to-face in his art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each painting on display is an embodiment of the artist. He is in there. Nakazono is present. <\/p>\n\n\n\nKoji Nakazono in 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Koji Nakazono<\/strong> Koji Nakazono was born in 1989 in Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture. In 2012, he completed the Oil Painting Course and graduated from the Department of Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. He died in the Seto Inland Sea in 2015. Major solo exhibitions include Koji Nakazono (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2013) and Koji Nakazono: On the Edge\u2014Places I Wanted to See (Yokosuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa, 2018); group exhibitions include The Way of Painting (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2014), New Vision Saitama 5: The Emerging Body (Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Saitama, 2016), and Japanorama: A New Vision on Art Since 1970 (Centre Pompidou-Metz, France, 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPainting of a woman Koji Nakazono, Untitled, ca. 2013 or 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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