makotu
nakagawa

What comes after death? This age-old question has been the cornerstone for many artists over the years. Makotu Nakagawa approaches the subject with intimacy, clarity and graphic representation, depicting his father and his body through numerous stages of life, death and the spaces inbetween.

Makotu was born in a rural town in Japan, when his father was 50 years old. For that reason, he grew up feeling the anxiety that father will die in near future. As he grew older, that anxiety grew.

After completing his aesthetics degree at Keio University in Tokyo, he worked in a liquor store and pursued photography in the evenings at Tokyo College of Photography in Yokohama. In order to escape from anxiety of death, he kept taking pictures over ten years. Only his father as a subject.

At the beginning he began taking pictures to escape from reality, but after time, it turned into a means to accept and record the raw reality that was in front of him. Even if it is hopeless and cold like an ice. Because, infinite beauty lives in the sight of reality.

Makotu notes: “I keep bending ear to these pictures, in order to carry this world after my father passed away. The work is only way for me to listen to the voice of silence.”