Brent Nakamoto

I am a Queer, Japanese-American, and Buddhist artist with a background in painting and drawing, printmaking, photography, and book arts. I received my BA from UC Santa Barbara and MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. I currently live and work in Pittsburgh, PA. I am the Program and Marketing Coordinator for Brew House Arts, a non-profit arts organization where I manage the Distillery Emerging Artist Residency. In 2022, I curated “Plain Silk, Uncarved Wood,” an exhibition of eight Asian-American artists living in Pittsburgh, and my critique of the 58th Carnegie International was published by Bunker Review in April 2023. My creative process is influenced by the study and practice of Zen Buddhism. Through my work I am researching and sharing about Buddhist practice, history, philosophy, ethics, and literary and material culture. I’m interested in creating opportunities for meditative observation and contemplation, inviting viewers to a closer examination of images and their relationship to them. Using repetitive gestures in painting and performative works, I invite the audience to consider creative practice as an unending and cyclical process. I am also the owner and operator of Almost Perfect Press, a curatorial and publishing project specializing in hand-bound, small-batch publications featuring emerging writers and artists.