Sight Lines

Aya Nakamura is intrigued by the ways in which vision changes based on external conditions (too much or too little light), on how the eye sees (with myopia, hyperopia, AMD, glasses refracting light in bands of yellow and blue, also known as chromatic aberration), and on internal states (of turmoil, peace, boredom). She has observed that while her brain interprets visual data, it also generates its own sights and insights, which is especially apparent at night in the scenes that unfold when asleep or half awake. At times her vision feels saturated, brought to a happy hypnosis by a dense crop of plants, while at other times it feels empty, as though the landscape has retreated to an impossibly far distance. Sound, on the other hand, focuses her vision suddenly and violently. Through meditation, Nakamura becomes aware of a vision that is charged with worldly references and tries to separate the associations from the visual information. It is a daily practice that is dotted with moments of inattention and unwelcome forms edging into her consciousness.

Her drawings aren’t necessarily 1:1 representations of these experiences—they are abstractions that reimagine and approximate them in roundabout ways. Viewers are greeted with the drawing Brick, an apt starting point as it refers to the brick wall across from Nakamura’s apartment that faces her as she begins a sit. Bio-patterns emerge as she lowers her eyelids, perhaps inspiring the drawing Hot Visions, a riot of intertwining red and white lines that reverberate atop an intense green field. While those two drawings have unique shapes, Warming is on a square sheet and is about coming together as a community, remembering loved ones, alive and dead, maintaining hope, all the warming effects bought about by the practice. Another shaped piece, Sit, was inspired by watching waves wash ashore in Karatsu Bay. After making the piece, she turned the paper upright to reference the sitting body performing a successful sit—the body grounded, with thoughts and sensations washing in and out with the breath. As much as Nakamura’s drawings are beautiful abstractions, they are also visceral in their making and their imagery, imbued with a corporeal life source.

While Nakamura’s imagery starts with a line as the basic compositional element, her drawings truly begin with the paper that she makes herself, stating “I want the substrate to be in relationship with the drawing.” Sometimes the shape of the paper is based on the image she has in mind, while other times the form of the paper leads and the drawing responds. Her paper can end up being rectilinear, like a traditional sheet, or shaped, like an Elizabeth Murray canvas. At times, Nakamura creates negative space by hollowing out internal pockets in her paper.

Aya Nakamura’s first show at Western Exhibitions in 2022 was reviewed in New City. She has shown at venues in the United States and abroad, recently at Secrist Beach and Heaven, both in Chicago, and at The Hangar and Dawawine in Beirut, Lebanon; Supa Salon in Istanbul, Turkey; Mana Decentralized in Jersey City, NJ; and MPSTN in Fox River Grove, IL. She is the recipient of the Denbo Fellowship from Pyramid Atlantic Art Center and the George and Ann Siegel Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a member of Chicago API (Asian, Pacific Islander) and Artists United (CAAU). Nakamura was born in Japan and educated in France and the United States, holding a BA in Fine Arts and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Nakamura currently lives and works in Chicago.