Photographed by Kenryou Gu

Somatic Modes of Attention brings artists Botella, Nawa, and Platt together in a mélange of work that engages the viewer with multiple complex and embodied perceptions. The artists employ visual indeterminacy, blurred and visceral impressions as a conscious strategy to engage both the subliminal and corporeal understanding of our environment and how using one's body to attend to one's surroundings, including the presence of others, can bring alternative modes of attention in a logocentric and rampantly excessive, visual culture. For the artists, visceral shifts in light and shadow, clarity and obscurity, emergence and disappearance create a slow and attentive vision and attest to valorizing the obscure and fallible aspects of human perception and cognizance. In radical contrast to a pervasive clarity of data and epistemologies, the artists invite us to submerge into a surreal, parallel world of phantasmagoria.

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BRUNO BOTELLA

Born in 1976 in Sarcelles, France, Botella graduated from the Ecole national superieure des Beaux-arts de Paris and the Cooper Union School of Arts in New York.

Major exhibitions include Maison Hermès Ginza (Tokyo, 2023) Museo Tamayo (Mexico City, 2018), Centre d’Art Neuchâtel (Neuchâtel, 2017), Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2015). His works are in the collections of Centre National des Arts Plastiques (Paris), Fondation Galeries Lafayette (Paris), Museo Tamayo (Mexico City) among others. Currently resides and works in Kyoto, Japan.

KOHEI NAWA

Born in 1975 in Osaka, Japan, Kohei Nawa received a PhD in Fine Art/Sculpture from Kyoto City University of Arts in 2003, and established Sandwich in 2009. He is now a professor at the Kyoto University of the Arts. Nawa has been exhibited in Museum of Contemporary Art (Tokyo , 2011), Louvre Museum (Paris, 2018), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (Kanazawa, 2019), Pace Gallery New York (New York, 2022), Pace Gallery (Seoul, 2023). The permanent collection include the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne). Works between Kyoto and Tokyo.

ROBERT PLATT

Born in 1974 in London, UK, Platt graduated from The Royal College of Art in 2001(Painting) and completed his PhD at Kyoto City University of Arts, 2009. Major exhibitions include Daiichi Life Gallery (Tokyo, 2022), Kyoto city Kyocera Museum (Kyoto, 2022), Torrance Art Museum(California,2021),  Hikiyama Museum (Shiga, 2018), University of Michigan(Michigan,2018).