Artist: Naomi Nakazato
Exhibition title: To Raise A Blister From Afar
Curated by: Andrew Woolbright
Venue: Below Grand, New York, US
Date: March 28 – May 20, 2022
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Below Grand, New York
Below Grand is pleased to present Naomi Nakazato’s exhibition To Raise a Blister Afar, her first solo exhibition with the gallery. Nakazato’s exhibition examines the mechanics of the shrine along with its function in crystallizing medial belonging outside of racial binaries, non-fluency, and geopolitical ruptures. By using the gallery as a telescoped experience of pilgrimage and homecoming, Nakazato considers how momentary places of ritual can simultaneously tether one’s self to place and obliterate imposed orientations.
To Raise a Blister Afar functions as a space to conjure a simultaneously singular and ambiguous identity; by eschewing the worship of individual deities or the utilization of traditional architectural tropes of Eastern and Western reliquaries. The installation suggests fuzzy articulations–an act of subversion in which the parameters of racially identifying can be mercurial and even irrelevant. In venerating the ineptitude to articulate and mime source, boundaries and normative expectations give way to subjective and deeply personal histories. As a result, the slippery grasp on belonging within in-between worlds can then be heralded as a kind of sacred, cogent faith.
Compositionally, the installation presents the ritual of reconciling dichotomous narratives through abstract associations and a syntax of fragments–mostly through symbols of the natural world. Organic and artificial materials are used in tandem to reach for this reconciliation; while remaining transparent of their inept fusion. Housed ephemera of distorted field studies, repaired castings of natural objects, and typefaces of voids all obfuscate their origin and seek to revere inexperience as faculty. Through the repeated rituals of reproducing, arranging, and archiving objects and images, imperfection in iterations becomes standardized and a glitchy conduit to present something that is holistically formed.
Naomi Nakazato‘s multidisciplinary work spans drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and installation to examine location, faulty language, and belonging within hybridity. She received a BA from Anderson University, South Carolina and an MFA from The New York Academy of Art, New York. Her work has recently shown at Below Grand (New York, NY), 5-50 Gallery (Queens, NY), Galerie Tracanelli (Grenoble, FR), Field Projects (New York, NY), Geary Contemporary (New York, NY), Olympia (New York, NY), and NARS Foundation (Brooklyn, NY). Research for her most recent body of work was completed at a two-month summer residency at PADA in Barreiro, Portugal. Nakazato lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, Ferric Tenderness is a Many Sliced Fruits-ed Thing. Laser print transfer on BFK Rives, aluminum flashing on panel. 48 x 60 x 1.5 in. 2022
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, To Raise A Blister From Afar, 2022, exhibition view, Below Grand, New York
Naomi Nakazato, Ferric Tenderness is a Many Sliced Fruits-ed Thing. Laser print transfer on BFK Rives, aluminum flashing on panel. 48 x 60 x 1.5 in. 2022
Naomi Nakazato, Flowers for the Mantel, Our Seepy Hem. Urethane, screen print on plexiglass, laser print transfer on thermoplastic, 41.5 x 24 x 11.75 in, 2022
Naomi Nakazato, Flowers for the Mantel, Our Seepy Hem. Urethane, screen print on plexiglass, laser print transfer on thermoplastic, 41.5 x 24 x 11.75 in, 2022
Naomi Nakazato, Cross Draft. Polyurethane and acrylic on canvas. 24.625 x 18.5 x .5 in. 2022
Naomi Nakazato, Cross Draft. Polyurethane and acrylic on canvas. 24.625 x 18.5 x .5 in. 2022
Naomi Nakazato, Mother Tongue Scraping. Screen print on acetate, laser print transfer on BFK Rives. 40 x 24 x .75 in. 2022
Naomi Nakazato, Save Point Alluvium, urethane, acrylic on plexiglass, xerox transfer on plexiglass. 29.5 x 8 x 8.5 inches. 2021
Naomi Nakazato, Save Point Alluvium, urethane, acrylic on plexiglass, xerox transfer on plexiglass. 29.5 x 8 x 8.5 inches. 2021
Naomi Nakazato, <span>_/_</span>. Laser print transfer on BFK Rives, plexiglass, mylar. 34.75 x 18.5 x .5 in. 2022
Naomi Nakazato, AOEp_PlumBeach_1. Screenprint on seaweed, acrylic, plexiglass, 14.75 x 20.5 in. 2021