Joel Nakamura's "Tako Niwa" Exhibit

This past weekend I traveled to a couple of new exhibitions in the San Diego area. My good pal Joel Nakamura presented a cohesive body of work about undersea life in a new gallery exhibit, “Tako Niwa,” (Octopus Garden), on Friday May 7. Joel had drove the entire show in the back seat of his car from Santa Fe to Subtext Gallery in San Diego and was welcomed to a well-attended reception by his family in Los Angeles and good friends in San Diego. Joel’s work was hung tightly on 3 gallery walls featuring 28 tin canvases with brightly colored polymers, inks and resin.

“Tako Niwa” represented 3 distinct themes, Japanese inspired super heroes, dogs and underwater life in the octopus garden ranging in size from 24” x 24” to 8” x 8.” The octopus and jellyfish images were the most striking, as Joel’s painted circular patterns perform a rhythmic dance in similarity to the sway of sea life moving forward and backward within the action of the tide. If you want to see this exhibition at Subtext you need to call first, the gallery is only open by appointment. Joel Nakamura’s “Tako Niwa” is on view until June 6, 2010.

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