Artist Profile

Koji Nakazono

Koji Nakazono was born in 1989 in Kanagawa, and died in July 2015 (at 25 years old). He graduated from the Oil Painting course of Tokyo University of the Arts in 2012. In the same year he was selected for “Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi 2012” and received the Tomio Koyama Award and the Audience Award.
He held solo exhibitions at Tomio Koyama Gallery in 2013 and at 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery in 2014. His first museum solo exhibition was “Koji Nakazono: On the Edge—Places I wanted to see “ at Yokosuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa in 2018.

His works were exhibited at “The Way of Painting” Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2014, “NEW VISION SAITAMA 5 The Emerging Body” at The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama In 2017, “Japanorama: New Vision of JAPAN from 1970” at Centre Pompidou-Metz, France in 2017,  “7th Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art: Clouds⇄Forests” at New Tretyakov Gallery Moscow, Russia in 2017, “DESIRE: A REVISION FROM THE 20TH CENTURY TO THE DIGITAL AGE” at Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2019.

His works are included in the public collection of , The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, the Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, Takamatsu Art Museum. 

Nakazono’s work amazes us for its prolificacy at his age and its variety in expressions. From a painterly work with the rich brushstrokes of a wide dancing brush, to an intense flood of colors and lines of crayon as if the artist were possessed by something. He also employed various media – linen, board and canvas. By covering all over the surface in an abstract way he limited the depth of the background, and by arranging multiple motifs such as unique figures in layers he is able to create pictorial space with perspective in only a limited area. Wavering motifs come to acquire images, and once they do they start flickering again. Adventurous, idiosyncratic and rich landscapes appear.

8/ tv documentary video at Koji Nakazono exhibition, 2014
https://vimeo.com/101279295
*This video has sounds. Please note the volume may be large.

director : Masaya Suzuki
filmed by : Shintaro Yamanaka
music by : yuichi NAGAO
presented by : Shibuya Hikarie 8/