Robert Nava Presents His First Solo Exhibition in Japan
Robert Nava’s first solo exhibition in Japan introduces a world where childhood imagination meets existential chaos. The exhibition showcases a new series of paintings and works on paper featuring a chimerical cast of dragons, angels and metamorphic beasts. Inspired by everything from prehistoric cave art to techno music, Nava’s style is intentionally raw — a blend of spray paint, acrylics and grease pencil — rendering scenes that feel both playful and unsettling.
A graduate of Yale’s MFA program, Nava stripped away traditional academic conventions to develop a style often associated with the irreverent “bad painting” movement. Despite the seemingly chaotic application of color and graffiti-like marks, his practice is deeply rooted in a daily discipline of drawing and sketchbook invention. His works often reference classical mythology and art history, and are now held in collections at the Art Institute of Chicago and MoMA Paris.
