NON II : Misaki Kawai

Names of Numbers is a series of monographic books of drawings by artists, intellectuals, scientists and people devoted to various other activities, curated by Carola Bonfili and Valerio Mannucci. The series’ aim is to consider drawing as a common language, often complementary or parallel to other forms of artistic or intellectual production. Each book presents 30 tables by a single author. The flexible nature of drawing, and its ability to manifest the representational capacity of the imagination, lead its uses to assume a variety of different forms: the drawings collected in this series alternately appear like diaries, studies, drafts, syntheses, memories, or even, simply, expressions of leisurely interest.

This second volume is dedicated to the work of Misaki Kawai (1978). Born in Osaka, Japan, Kawai divides her time between her hometown and New York. In addition to painting, she uses cheap, manufactured found objects to assemble sculptures of bizarrely stylised modern environments, featuring characters that represent both her real and imagined communities. The 30 tables collected in this book all portray the simple anthropomorphic figures that constitute the symbolic and graphic alphabet at the basis of Kawai’s large-scale works.

Format: 24 x 33,5 cm
Pages: 60 (30 tables)
Edition of 200 copies. 2013