EXHIBITIONS
Shota Nakamura “Orient”
Dates: Oct 4 – Nov 1, 2025
Location: Taka Ishii Gallery Roppongi
Taka Ishii Gallery Roppongi is pleased to present “Orient,” a solo exhibition of the work of Shota Nakamura, from Saturday, October 4, to Saturday, November 1. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, and will feature approximately 12 works on paper. Taka Ishii Gallery Kyobashi will host a concurrent solo exhibition by Nakamura titled “Blue and Green”.
Although Nakamura has previously worked in watercolor, this is his first time exhibiting a cohesive series of works on paper. Featuring a series of identically sized works, it explores the theme of landscapes seen from the window of a moving car, which form the wellspring of Nakamura’s imagery. As viewers move through the space, the sequence of changing scenes evokes the shifting views glimpsed from a car in motion. For Nakamura, a canvas or sheet of paper serves as a kind of window onto another world. He explains that standardizing the dimensions of the paper is a means of emphasizing the paper (or frame) as a structure that determines how his imagery emerges.
Drawn to the fluidity of water-based media, Nakamura focuses on the sensation of images emerging from watercolor stains. The medium’s ever-shifting, control-resistant nature seems to echo the ephemerality of scenery seen from a moving car. Nakamura’s embrace of fluidity, chance, and transparency resonates with the painterly approach in his works at the Kyobashi venue.
Shota Nakamura was born in 1987 in Yamanashi. He graduated from Musashino Art University in 2011 and currently lives and works in Berlin. Nakamura’s practice begins with his own memories, observations, and research into diverse imagery derived from paintings, films, photographs, and other sources. He edits and reconstructs these images in compositions that take the form of landscapes, figures, and still life arrangements. Scenes in which the boundaries between gardens or landscapes and interiors seem to dissolve, and figures that convey quiet introspection, are imbued with the immersive atmosphere that characterizes Nakamura’s work.
His solo exhibitions include “SIGHS”, C L E A R I N G (New York, 2025); “small works 2022-2024”, C L E A R I N G (Los Angeles, 2024); “light room”, C L E A R I N G (Los Angeles, 2023); “each passing day”, Peres Projects (Berlin, 2022); “Walking”, Ilwoo Space (Seoul, 2021). He has participated in group exhibitions such as “Aura Within”, Hauser & Wirth (Hong Kong, 2025); “Wings of a Butterfly”, Ingleby Gallery (Edinburgh, 2025); “Meet me by the lake”, C L E A R I N G (New York, 2024); “BERNHEIM x ADZ Gallery”, Bernheim (Zurich, 2024); “Male Nudes: a salon from 1800 to 2021”, Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo, 2021). Nakamura’s works are included in the collections of ICA Miami; Orange County Museum of Art (Costa Mesa); Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette (Paris).
