Born in Osaka, Japan in 1975. Founder of SANDWICH Inc., a creative platform of Nawa’s various arts disciplines and is his production base as the Director. One of Nawa's distinctive works is the "PixCell" series of sculptures, a word coined from “pixel” and “cell”. He is known for encasing taxidermied animals and various objects in countless transparent glass beads of varying sizes. As the word “sculpture” itself implies, it can be broadly divided into “the practice of shaping figures” and “the act of twisting shapes utilizing plasticity”. Sculpture in contemporary art has been excelled since Marcel Duchamp’s “Readymades”, but Nawa’s “PixCell” series can be considered as the most recent attempt for “non-contact” sculpture. “PixCell” is highly praised for proving that, in a contemporary manner, sculptures can be created without any modification to the base material (taxidermy, etc.) by altering visual perceptions optically or with the help of technology. In other series of his works, many of them do not involve direct contact with the material as well. Since sculpture is a form of artistic expression that involves the contact of stone, wood, metal or other materials, Nawa is attempting to “question the nature” while shaking the foundation of contemporary sculpture. In addition to sculpture, he continues to play a prominent role in painting, photography, architectural design, stage direction, and product design.
Nawa’s recent major activities include the art pavilion “Kohtei”, a performance work in collaboration with Damien Jalet (2016~2021), and a special exhibition of sculpture “Throne” in the Pyramid of the Louvre Museum (2018). Nawa is also the professor of Fine & Applied Arts Field at the Graduate School of Kyoto University of the Arts.