RYOICHI NAKAMURA

PETER AUGUSTUS is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition with emerging Japanese artist, Ryoichi Nakamura. This is the artist’s first non-institutional solo show in the United States.

The show’s title, a study of identity, reflects both Nakamura’s journey over the course of creating this project and the public’s intended experience during the exhibition. Working with historical photographs, Nakamura’s work depicts portraits of Japanese immigrants to America and Japanese Americans from the late 1800s through mid-1900s. Many of the subjects were sent to internment camps by the US Government during WWII.

An ongoing project for the past six years, this extensive body of multimedia work began after Nakamura was awarded a grant by Japan’s Pola Art Foundation in 2015, which allowed him to travel to New York and Los Angeles to conduct research for the concept. It was during this time that Nakamura experimented with a special method of photo emulsion onto brass, copper, and aluminum plate. A trained painter, the artist altered each portrait, obscuring the image with color, scratches, and paint. The resulting work challenges the viewer to study what we do to obscure our true selves to assimilate into society.

The exhibition will feature a dramatic display of nearly 400 portraits on metal with a selection of Nakamura’s oil on canvas works.



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For more information, please contact:

Peter Augustus Owen
peter@peteraugustusgallery.com

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