Joel Nakamura is as American as it gets. The son of artist parents, Nakamura was born and raised in Botoxed-butt-lifted-stomach-stapled L.A. Now a husband and father, he calls Santa Fe home, a place where you can get green chili on your burger at McDonald’s. Nakamura is a multicultural Asian-hybrid: a student who once considered biology but selected art as his profession, a reader of Joseph Campbell—whose observation, “myths are public dreams and dreams are private myths,†helps guide his thinking. He is a mythmaker of enormous talent; his illustrations are a significant part of the American commercial landscape and have been seen in newspapers and magazines across the United States as well as Europe and Japan. His intricate, well-wrought paintings sell well in galleries from Santa Fe to the West Coast. And he is a champion slow-pitch softball pitcher.
Joel Nakamura is a graduate of the world-renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena where he later became an instructor. He, his wife Kathleen and their two children live about 10 minutes south of Santa Fe Plaza. His work has been featured in newspapers and magazines across the United States. He has been the subject of numerous one-man shows, with his home gallery Hahn-Ross on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. He counts today two young persons—his children—as the sources for some of his most compelling and intriguing ideas in paint. "They are my greatest work of art, my greatest inspiration, in life," he says.
More available at www.joelnakamura.com : An Appreciation by Matthew Porter :
