In the title of his exhibition Midst Seizen, the Japanese American artist Jean Isamu Nagai’s play on words has a simple yet powerful message for humankind: enjoy the present moment. According to Nagai, the word “midst” refers to layers of reality and is a riff on “mid” and “mist” while the word “seizen” is a play on “season” and “seize.” With the climate rapidly changing, Nagai believes that our seasons have become less defined, and our lives are more unpredictable than ever as a result. His latest body of work serves as a reminder to pause and celebrate the connectedness of everything, to embrace science and the supernatural, and to honor both life on Earth and the otherworldly. 

His unique trajectory as an artist is key to understanding his perspective and mission. Nagai spent his formative years in Olympia, Washington, a place that developed a countercultural reputation in the seventies. Nagai describes life in the dank capital city as socialist, esoteric, and seemingly utopic for an artist. He immersed himself in the city’s underground music scene, designing flyers and T-shirts for bands. Through music he developed a sense for both energy and sensation and how they could be used to access more spiritual states of mind. Nagai was also introduced to mushroom foraging in Olympia, where Fungi Perfecti, a company devoted to researching and developing mushroom-based medicine, is headquartered. He found several edible and medicinal fungi, including psilocybe and panaeolus cyanescens, to enhance his awareness of the natural world, which he believes to be inherently psychedelic. Nagai enjoys the thought of “spreading” this awareness by mixing the spores into the paint he uses, believing that it promises a connection to self reflection and empathy.