Natalia Nakazawa

Natalia Nakazawa’s work is concerned with ideas of transnationality, diasporic contexts and cultural identities, storytelling, archives, and patterns of migration. She has long been fascinated by comprehensive cultural institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but has questioned her own place and personal history within their confines. Nakazawa accumulates archival imagery by entering poetic search terms into the museum’s database, collapsing layered representations of the collection into textiles in order to reconsider the museum’s alienating structures and question national identities. In her wood panel paintings, she uses Jacquard woven ribbons that have been arranged as orthographic architectural forms to present multiple perspectives. Influenced by eastern storytelling devices and illustrated manuscripts, the works seek to present numerous viewpoints of a singular story.

Natalia received her MFA in studio practice from California College of the Arts, a MSEd from Queens College, and a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has recently been exhibited at Wave Hill (Bronx, NY), Arlington Arts Center (Washington, DC), Transmitter Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY), American Folk Art Museum Gallery (Long Island City, NY), Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), The Old Stone House in Brooklyn (NY). Natalia has been an artist in residence at The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, MASS MoCA, SPACE on Ryder, Wassaic Project, Facebook AIR, Triangle Arts NYC, with forthcoming residencies at Interlude Residency and CAMPO Garzon.