Kota Nakamura exhibition “KAGIROHI- Morning Twilight -”

“Kagirohi” is a Japanese word referring to the morning twilight and especially the time that the sky becomes a beautiful red just before sunrise.
The term appeared in the Manyoshu, the oldest poetry anthology in Japan, and the word was used by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.

Kota NAKAMURA felt a kind of transience in this phenomenon and found it in common with his own works.
There is a brief moment when night fades and all lives start to wake, which is fleeting.
This moment echoes Kota Nakamura’s work, which explores the vitality of life and the beauty that arises through the collision, fusion, and transformation of materials.
Kota is the grandson of Takuji NAKAMURA, who is a famous painter with conventional Western style arts. However, he chose to pursue contemporary art and moved abroad to New York. While living in New York, he experienced 9/11 in 2001 as well.

We hope that you experience thoughts, emotions and questions that Kota has put into his works.

Mizoe Art Gallery,
Kazunobu ABE

■Workshop event
- Brainstorming-Let’s have experience how to get ideas!
Have you ever wondered how artists come up with ideas?
Let’s try brainstorming with sharing mystery experience and dreams!

■Date & Time
From 3pm, Sunday 14th June
Feel free to join the reception party after the workshop.

■Venue
Mizoe Art Gallery in Tokyo



- Kota NAKAMURA
He was born in Kamakura, Japan, in 1975.
He received a B.F.A. from Syracuse University in 1999 and an M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2003. In the same year, he was accepted into the Landscape Architecture program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
In 2010, he completed the doctoral program at the Tokyo University of the Arts, earning a Ph.D. in Fine Arts.
His notable achievements include selection for Confront the Tower of the Sun! at the Taro Okamoto Memorial Museum (2015), the Bronze Prize at Art Olympia 2017 (with works acquired by the Atami Yamaguchi Museum of Art), and participation in the Bangladesh Biennale (2018).
In 2024, he held the solo exhibition Bear Barely (Girigiri no Shinogi) at the Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art.
Nakamura has exhibited extensively in New York and at numerous exhibitions in Japan and internationally. He currently lives and works between Tokyo and Kamakura.