Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

The Motion Graphic Portraits of Kouhei Nakama

What makes Kouhei Nakama’s animations tantalizing is how each builds or deconstructs the face with alien processes. They’re comprised of swarming creatures or layers of liquid skin melting off a smiling face. In an era when every digital design student is showing off their realistic renders, Nakama’s artistry offers the unexpected in his engrossing portraits.

What makes Kouhei Nakama’s animations tantalizing is how each builds or deconstructs the face with alien processes. They’re comprised of swarming creatures or layers of liquid skin melting off a smiling face. In an era when every digital design student is showing off their realistic renders, Nakama’s artistry offers the unexpected in his engrossing portraits.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkuKFgvA8cB/

Projects like “Diffusion” and “Cycle” come with simple, yet inviting taglines:
“Life is a cycle. We are dying from birth, reborn till death.”
“Why don’t humans have patterned texture like animals? Humans will be able to get it.”

See more of the artist’s work below.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Swedish animator Robert Ek crafts absorbing loops, his 3D creations packed with psychedelic, hypnotic situations. The work follows a tradition that calls back to the Mind's Eye art films of the early 1990s, which circulated as VHS tapes and employed then-progressive digital renders. Like those films, Ek’s videos are best heard with their handpicked soundtracks, sometimes custom-made by the artist. The artist mainly shows his pieces through Instagram.
Orcas and wolves traverse the digital land and sea in TJ Fuller's holographic-looking GIFs. Fuller is an artist who wears many hats: In addition to his personal work, he creates iPad apps for cats (seriously, games for your cat!) and is an animation director for Maker Studios. His personal work has a lo-fi aesthetic, like a DIY VHS recording where colors appeared pixelated. With his CMYK color palette, his pieces have a digital glow to them that contrasts with their nature-inspired subject matter.
Colin Raff’s “Perturbatorium” is a collection of unsettling animations and collage work. Recalling the work of Max Ernst or Terry Gilliam, the work has a particular movement because of his “step-frame animation” method. The animations are rooted in Raff's photo-collage work, which he has described as having "distinct 20th c. antecedents (Heartfield, Ernst, Höch, etc.)."
While GIFs have yet to find an established place in the art world, they're fascinating because they have the potential to go beyond the frozen image in two dimensions. Texas artist Hayden Zezula, aka Zolloc, works as a designer and animator by day, but has an expansive portfolio of animated GIFs that will cause chills to creep down your spine. His latest series, titled "Oswra," features a cast of mutated babies with pale gray skin. Their multiplying limbs move in geometric arrangements that are both hypnotizing and frightening. Take a look below.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List