“A Room With Hermès″Norio Nakamura

[Title] A Room With Hermès
[Artist] Norio Nakamura
[Date] January 19 – March 16, 2017

An uninhabited room. A teapot perches on a table, and a bag sits on a sofa. Who lives here, what do they do there, and what is about to happen? Looking at the room through the lens of the objects placed in it, all sorts of stories spring to mind.

The theme of Hermès for 2017 is “Object Sense.” Objects have all manner of implications, including their era, the vogue of the time, the owner’s sensibilities, the reason they were chosen, the function they fulfill, and so on.

In the front windows, the same scene is shown from different perspectives. The teapot as seen by the bag, the bag as seen by the teapot. Both as illustrations and as objects, these two viewpoints are expressed in three dimensions through bold perspective that creates a tension as if the bag and the teapot were two characters gazing at one another.

Graphic designer Norio Nakamura conveys things without words using simple graphics, giving the viewer a sense of instant recognition. The human brain actively seeks to interpret phenomena through sensation and experience, even with limited information. In Nakamura’s illustrations, which represent the features of objects and the environment with exquisite balance and color usage, subjects are intentionally omitted or deformed, giving viewers a chance to inflate their imaginations.

The owner of this room seems to be a Hermès aficionado, and Hermès products are seen in various scenes. However, looking at the room from another angle, apparently it is not only the owner of the room that likes Hermès, but ….

Norio Nakamura
Art director and graphic designer, born in Kawasaki. After graduating from the Nihon University College of Art, he worked at Sony Music Entertainment Co., Ltd. before becoming an independent designer. His books include Dottoko Zoo, A Scientist and His Amazing Pool, Radical Advertisement (co-authored with Masahiko Sato), and Ad Designs for Maywa Denki (co-authored with Nobumichi Tosa). Major awards include the New York ADC Silver Award, the Japan Media Arts Festival Excellence Award, and the Tokyo ADC Award, as well as the Bologna / Ragazzi Honorable Mention for the picture book Dottoko Zoo.

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