Shota NagaseContemporary ArtistShota Nagase is a Japanese contemporary artist based in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture. Born in 1975 in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, he began photography in 2008, initially working with macro photography and landscapes.Following the sudden passing of his mentor,...
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Contemporary Artist
Shota Nagase is a Japanese contemporary artist based in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture. Born in 1975 in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, he began photography in 2008, initially working with macro photography and landscapes.
Following the sudden passing of his mentor, Ikuyuki Kuramochi, in 2010, Nagase began working as a photography instructor while continuing to develop his own artistic practice. In 2015, he started experimenting with what he later defined as his camera-drawing method: a photographic process in which long exposure, intentional camera movement, and the unpredictable release of light interact within a single image.
Since presenting his first Phoenix photographs in 2018, Nagase has focused on fireworks not as events to be documented, but as temporary phenomena produced by combustion. His works explore the relationship between light, memory, bodily movement, and disappearance, transforming the brief explosion of fireworks into traces of time and energy.
In 2025, in collaboration with G-cube Corporation, he began expanding his practice into three-dimensional and spatial works using an autobody printer. Through photographic prints, washi-based installations, and experimental surfaces, Nagase continues to investigate how light remains after it has vanished.
