Kota Ezawa

The Old Man and the Sea, 2011

Paper Cutout

7.5 x 13.5 in.

Unique

Courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery

Retail Value: $2,800

Kota Ezawa (AIR ’11) explores the appropriation and mediation of current events and images utilizing both still photographic methodology and video.  He translates found film, video, and photographic footage into simplified drawings and animations that reduce complex imagery to its most essential, two-dimensional elements in order to debate their validity as mediators of actual historical events and personal experiences. Ezawa’s work has been showcased in solo exhibitions at such institutions as the Hayward Gallery in London, Artpace in San Antonio, and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford. He received a SECA Art Award in 2006 and a Eureka Fellowship in 2010. Ezawa’s work has been acquired by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. Ezawa was born in Germany where he began his undergraduate studies at the Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf. He went on to earn his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from Stanford University.  He lives and works in San Francisco.