Tomoko Nagakawa: #86130, 2026

Description

Tomoko Nagakawa [b.1973, Japan] is a photographic artist whose practice bridges analogue photography with hand-applied printing techniques. Working through a slow, tactile process, she creates refined photographic objects that invite contemplation and open-ended interpretation. Her work foregrounds touch, material sensitivity, and the physical act of making as essential components of meaning.

Central to Nagakawa’s practice is a meditative method she refers to as “letter writing,” in which each work is approached as a quiet form of communication. Through the careful selection of surfaces, emulsions, and gestures, she constructs images that feel both intimate and expansive. Objects that carry a sense of presence, breath, and time… READ MORE

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ΔS ≥ 0 [The Weight of a Second]

Time is not constant. While clocks advance evenly, lived time stretches and collapses, years passing unnoticed, a single second expanding beyond measure. ΔS ≥ 0 names this condition: the relentless progression, where each moment carries the accumulated weight of what cannot be undone.

Across cultures and histories, stories return to this instability of time. In the Japanese folktale of Urashima Tarō, a fisherman returns home to find centuries have passed. Oisín leaves Ireland for what feels like a brief stay in Tír na nÓg, only to discover generations gone. Rip Van Winkle sleeps through the birth of a nation. In The Odyssey, time fractures between Odysseus and Penelope: his years collapse into a sequence of trials, while hers accumulate through waiting. By weaving each day and undoing her work each night, Penelope uses repetition and erasure to hold time in suspension as the world moves forward without her. These stories share a truth. Time is felt, not counted… READ MORE

Tomoko Nagakawa is represented in the UK by Open Doors Gallery

All enquiries:
tom@opendoors.gallery