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Zai Nomura
Zai Nomura is an artist whose practice centers on the relationship between existence and memory. Utilizing a variety of media such as photography, installation, and modified devices, he explores themes of presence and disappearance, as well as the evolving nature of memory that accompanies these states.
Nomura’s creative approach reflects an attentiveness to elements that subtly inhabit the everyday—whether fleeting moments of the present or things supposedly lost—and a desire to preserve their traces in different forms as works of art. Through this process, Nomura continues to question how existence persists and transforms within memory.
Methods such as dissolving photographic images of people in water or transcribing human existence onto paper as DNA data are characteristic of Nomura’s work, which sublimates matter into new forms and renders visible the subtle fluctuations of presence and time. The resulting expressions are marked by a delicate, emotional resonance that deeply engages the viewer’s senses and memory.
Nomura is also deeply interested in how advances in contemporary media technologies arereshaping the meaning of existence. As digitization and the recording and preservation of information continue to advance, we are now confronted not only with physical presence but also new forms of existence such as data and AI. By incorporating these modern perspectives, Nomura’s work resonates deeply with the viewer’s inner self, subtly prompting awareness of the tension between change and permanence, and the significance of being alive here and now.
The new work presented in this exhibition focuses on a theme Nomura has been exploring over time: sound and existence. In collaboration with engineers who have worked on many of Nomura’s previous projects, a unique phonograph combining the functions of recording, reproducing, and giving material form to sound has been created. A performance using this device will also take place in the gallery space.
How might the sounds of the world feel different after experiencing this exhibition? We invite you to fully immerse yourself in this unique work.
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Born in Japan / Lives and works in New York and Kobe, Japan
Zai Nomura was born and grew up in Kobe-city, west side of Japan, and has been working between Kobe and New York since 2020. Nomura received his Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Musashino University in Tokyo in 2013, and his MFA from Goldsmiths, the University of London in 2009. While living in Hyogo, he experienced the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 and lost family members during the time of disaster. Following this, Nomura began to question his relationship with art and interrogate what he aims to establish and represent in the imagery and function of art. From 2019 through 2021, Nomura received a grant from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs and participated in the artist in residency program at ISCP (International Studio and Curatorial Program), Brooklyn, NY.
2024 It’s OK, the fact you exist will never fade even though this universe will be gone, SHISEIDO Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2024 Can’t Remember I Forgot You, TOKAS, Tokyo, Japan
2021 Echoes, Ulterior Gallery, New York, USA
2020 333, Japan Society Gallery, New York, NY
2018 gallery αM, Tokyo, Japan
2016 Aichi International Triennial 2016
Upcomming Exhibition
2025 Seoul Media Biennale
portrait photo by TomoyoYamazaki
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Untitled -It's OK, the fact you exist will never fade even though this universe will be gone
Biophoton has been shining like this (A young Japanese male student and his sister in white dress, 1944) (exemplary work)
Lois (exemplary work)
Fantôme (exemplary work)
Lost and Found (memory cotton candy for dementia) (exemplary work)
Today (exemplary work)
Lightigure (exemplary work)
