PixCell-Double Deer#4 2010

Kohei Nawa’s works fuse the natural and virtual realms through exquisite studies in form and perception.

In this work, two taxidermied deer in identical poses have been sliced together to produce an optical doubling, which the artist likens to the effect produced when holding ‘Ctrl+C’ on a keyboard. The outer surface of transparent beads approximates the thousands of pixels that make up digital images, as Nawa attempts to recreate the visual experience of the computer screen in sculptural form.

Coining the term ‘PixCell’ — a combination of ‘pixel’ (the digital) and ‘cell’ (the living) — Nawa meshes a virtual aesthetic with tangible forms. The silhouettes of the deer become unstable and dynamic as the viewer moves around the sculpture, and this elasticity of perception suggest a disjunction between visual perception and bodily experience in the internet age.