Nobuo Okawa was born in Tokyo and trained at St Martin’s School of Art, London in the late 1970s, where he became interested in the intaglio printmaking technique of mezzotint. His work has been exhibited in the UK, Japan and USA and a collection of his prints are held in the British Museum.
“When the result is good I can never remember how I did it, but if it is inferior I know exactly what was going through my mind while I was making it.
I never make preliminary drawings for my work, I work straight onto the copper plate. Paul Klee said, ‘doodle and see what happens’, and that is the way I work. I do not put titles on my work because I cannot describe them in words. It is up to the viewer to explore the images according to his or her imagination and experience.
Had I stayed in Japan I would never have made these prints.”
