Motomichi Nakamura 'Cien Ojos' Exhibition - Bogotá, Colombia
Opening: Nov 26, 2015 to Jan 7
Galería Bogotá Arte Contemporáneo BAC
Avenida 19 # 109 36, BOGCO Bogotá, Colombia
This exhibition is named after the main painting of this show called “Hyakume”, which translates into “One Hundred Eyes Demon”.
“Hyakume” is a legendary Japanese Yokai (monster or demon) that is said to literally have one hundred eyes distributed all around his body. With a rather quiet and passive disposition, Hyakume would take one of his eyes and “throw” it at a human, the eye would then follow the human until the person runs away in fear.
Eyes are often described as the “mirrors of the soul” and as in the case of the Hyakume legend they are capable of instilling a primary level of fear if what is found inside of that mirror is something unknown or inhuman.
Looking into a portrait, the viewer is usually immediately drawn to the eyes of the subject. as if trying to connect with the figure in the portrait at a more personal level, but what if we were to see into eyes that don’t reflect anything familiar?
The concept of this exhibition is then to try to recreate the experience where a person were to suddenly encounter a mythical creature, when looking into the eyes of the monster portraits a brief moment of mutual inspection into each other's souls would occur where both subjects, the observer and the portrayed, would desperately look for something recognizable.
About the artist:
Motomichi Nakamura was born and raised in Japan. He attended Parsons School of Design in NYC where he studied Communication Design and Illustration.
His work is known for the use of black, white and red and simple graphic elements visualized in the form of character as a person or a monster. He seeks to portray the anger, the fear, and the sadness that transgress at a subconscious level through our minds during nightmares that are represented visually as creatures, seemingly soft and cute, and at times abstractions of this form.
He works with various media including, painting, sculpture, animation, projection mapping and his work has been exhibited globally in numerous museums and galleries including the New Museum of
Contemporary Art in New York, Winzavod - Moscow Contemporary Art Center, MARCO in Monterrey, Mexico, Taubman Museum of Art in Virginia among others. His films have been screened at Sundance Film Festival, Onedotzero Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Commercially he has worked on projects for clients such as EA, MTV, USA Networks and Sony and produced a music video for the Swedish band The Knife.
He currently lives in Quito, Ecuador, also known as “City in the sky” located at 2,800m above sea level.
