Naomi Nakazato

(b 1992, United States. Lives and works in Brooklyn)

Nakazato's work maps the twin nature of her Japanese-American identity by interrupting traditional landscape motifs. She constructs monuments to fragmentation through the development; scrutiny and synthesis of patchy topographies pocked with voids; lapses; barriers and mistranslation. Each of her pieces begins with an objective starting point; such as a stock photograph or a screenshot from Google Maps; which purports realness in its representation. This neutral medium is then conjoined with Nakazato's own sentimental; idiosyncratic memories of her time in Japan. Her works are made through analogue (graphite; acrylic; watercolour) and out-dated digital media (simulations of Mac and Microsoft paint); then layered and flattened through printmaking processes. She says: “This materials-based process is conceptually relevant to my interest in language and the inevitable palimpsest of lived experience; all arriving at a point of aesthetic distillation.”