Kota Ezawa's large-scale wooden tableau features a group of people raising their hands to vote in what appears to be a town hall meeting. The work is a visual representation of democracy by one of its most prevalent signifiers: the vote. Ezawa's rendering is made from a found image and remains faithful to the original source by maintaining the photograph's basic structure and framing. The flat, wooden construction is evocative of a stage set or façade, while the exposed supporting structure behind suggests that the status of democracy is fragile and needs to be continually reinforced. In light of recent events in which the demand for societal reform has become an urgent issue both abroad and at home—from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement—Ezawa's portrait of democracy could seem timely.
Kota Ezawa's diverse projects take the form of digital animations, slide projections, lightboxes, paper cut-outs, intaglio etchings, ink drawings and wood sculptures. Using well-known images from the history of photography, film and the popular media.
Kota Ezawa has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions at Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH, St. Louis Art Museum, Charles H. Scott Gallery in Vancouver, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Art Institute of Chicago, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, as well as the 5th Seoul International Biennale of Media Art and the 2004 Shanghai Biennale. Ezawa lives in San Francisco and Berlin.
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