Atsuya Nagata

I use my diary as the starting point for daily creation, expressing the shifts in emotions and thoughts it contains through abstract drawings made with a single, continuous line.

Born in Tottori, he records daily events and thoughts in a diary, translating the emotions and subtle fluctuations of each day into a single, continuous line. Influenced by the philosophy of line in calligraphy, he does not treat the line as a symbol that conveys fixed meaning. Instead, it is something to be read and, at the same time, something to be felt. Derived from the discipline of calligraphy, the line exists as a trace - one that resists standards of right and wrong or conventional ideas of beauty. It embraces hesitation, uncertainty, and the rhythm of the body’s breath. In some works, he also presents excerpts from his diary alongside the drawings, installing written notes together with the lines to reveal the parallel presence of text and trace.