Kohei Nawa, sculptor

Sculptor Kohei Nawa was born in Osaka in 1975. In 2009, he established SANDWICH Inc., a platform for his creative work, in Kyoto. He has held solo exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including Kohei Nawa: Synthesis at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2011 and Force at Pace London. He is a professor in the Graduate School of Art and Design at Kyoto University of Art and Design. Based on his original portmanteau PixCell, which combines pixel, the smallest digital image unit, with cell, Nawa uses a range of materials and technologies including beads, prisms, polyurethane foam and silicon oil, to explore new possibilities in sculpture.

Photo: Nobutada Omote | SANDWICH

SANDWICH Inc.

SANDWICH, a platform for Nawa’s creative activities, is based in the renovated property of a former sandwich factory along the Uji River in Fushimi Ward, Kyoto. Creators from an array of fields, such as art, architecture and design, gather here to formulate new expressions. The architecture team established by Nawa, Yoshitaka Lee and Yuichi Kodai explores spatial expressions that involve soft and hard aspects, using contemporary art as a foundation and employing a sculptural vocabulary. Based on these concepts and primal images, the design team creates studies digitally, after which the production team creates innovative uses of materials and methods. The collaboration of the different teams is key to materializing each project. Young creators from Japan and abroad stay at the studio regularly. Weekend projects are developed with art school students. Thus, SANDWICH keeps creating and presenting novel expressions from Kyoto to the world.

Photo: Shungo Takeda