Whitestone Gallery Ginza New Gallery is pleased to present Cyborg Butterfly: Threshold, a solo exhibition by Yoshiaki Nakamura. This marks the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with Whitestone.

At the core of Nakamura’s artistic practice lies an exploration of the boundaries between perception—particularly hearing and vision—and the search for new possibilities of dialogue between self and others. Due to sensorineural hearing loss from childhood, Nakamura completely lost his hearing once in 2000. However, after receiving a cochlear implant in 2012, his perception of the world underwent a dramatic transformation. What had once been a monochromatic world experienced only through vision became a multilayered reality filled with color and reverberation.

This exhibition consists of two bodies of work: Cyborg Butterfly and Threshold.

Artist Statement »

Cyborg Butterfly further develops the artist’s exploration of the possibilities for dialogue across different sensory modalities beyond the realm of painting. Each work contains a built-in bone-conduction speaker. By touching certain parts of the painted butterflies, viewers encounter “sound” as a visual resonance. Through sight, hearing, and touch, these works allow viewers to experience the sensory transformation the artist himself underwent after receiving a cochlear implant.

Meanwhile,Thresholdis a participatory installation that encourages introspection and evokes visual perceptions of sound rather than emphasizing the form of the artwork itself, the series places importance on relationships and interaction with viewers. It represents an attempt to further expand the possibilities of relational art.

By incorporating acoustic elements into Nihonga painting, Yoshiaki Nakamura explores the boundaries between perception, sensation, and communication. Underlying his practice are themes of “transformation of the body,” “sound and silence,” and “Japanese aesthetics.”