A status symbol is a perceived visible, external denotation of one's social position and perceived indicator of economic or social status. Many luxury goods are often considered status symbols. An object is a material that can be touched and seen. The artwork “deer” was made in 2011 and it is a taxidermied deer with artificial crystal glass beads all over its body and head. It is 205cm in height and 150cm in width. Kohei Nawa is a Japanese artist that does all kinds of artwork such as beads, prism, liquid and many more. Nawa was born in Osaka, Japan in 1975 but now lives and works in Kyoto, where he is Associate Professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design. Kohei Nawa’s taxidermied deer is a connection to his cultural beliefs.
This taxidermied deer has been completely transformed through Kohei Nawa’s use of variably sized “PixCell” beads, a term he invented. PixCell combines the idea of a “pixel,” the smallest unit of a digital image, with that of a “cell.” Whether intentionally or…show more content… Kohei Nawa explains that through this process, “the existence of the object itself is replaced by ‘a husk of light’, and the new vision, ‘the cell of an image,’ is shown.” Fittingly his most recent series is titled “PixelCell” (2009-2015), for which the artist has used taxidermy animals, including deer, cheetahs, rabbits, and coyotes. As a sculptor, Nawa is interested in forms and surfaces and how they interact to become objects. He is amazed by how we navigate and understand objects in the virtual world via the internet. To create his artworks, he enters keywords into online search engines and conceives of sculptures based on the images that are returned. He then sources a taxidermied animal from online auction sites and covers them with glass and resin beads of varying
