Naoki Kawano

Painter, designer and photographer Naoki Kawano studied Art & Design at Blake College, London, where he began to develop his artistic style. Having worked as a graphic designer, he began exploring analogue materials in search of more freedom.

Naoki Kawano is captivated by delicate and sensitive materials and uses them to elicit a strong emotional response, harnessing their various textures to change the perception of viewers. He finds ways to use new materials to create a unique language of textures.

As part of his work process, he keeps a notebook in which he jots down the ideas that come to him, with the materials he uses being pivotal in the development of an idea, a word from a poem, a form or a material; visualising it as an artwork.

He manages to combine the facets of photographer and designer with the same temperance and nuance that identify his works of art. Naoki Kawano does not paint to detach himself, but to create. He does not use art as a way to escape reality; rather, he creates in such a way as to merge multiple other realms into a single reality: our own. He is constantly exploring other spheres of our existence through his art. As the artist himself says: "Art is something I cannot switch off. My mind is subconsciously looking for inspiration all the time."

Through his thought process and work, he translates his adventures into a physical form of art: colour, texture and symbolism; in which the brushstrokes lead us to minimalist, abstract and geometric art. The possibility of visual communication has always been present in his life.

He finds inspiration everywhere, from the tranquillity of nature to the bustle of cities, and he feels admiration for countless objects. One of Kawano s great artistic references, with whom he identifies, is the artist Yves Klein, one of the most outstanding exponents of Dadaism.

Kawano has taken part in multiple exhibitions and fairs around the world, and he currently lives and works in Paris, France.