ricardo nagaoka // surrogates

On view August 29–October 5, 2025
Opening reception Friday, August 29 (6–8pm) 

Nationale is delighted to welcome ricardo nagaoka for their debut exhibition with the gallery. surrogates is a collection of black and white images that consider the intrinsic melding of identities when given the opportunity to flourish in quiet safety. Deep shadows and cropped frames illuminate an honest portrayal of individuals in the sanctuary repose of their homes. The works are revelatory, tender, and raw; each begs to question what we know about ourselves and what we have the opportunity to uncover. As such, the photographs live in the contradictions of identity, foregoing any personally or societally imposed inhibitions. While sexuality, gender, and mirroring are key themes of this series, nagaoka captures each of their subjects both in their current stage of being and in their multitudes. A hand softly cupped on a shoulder, a bare sternum flexed and leaning—these details reveal just enough to insist on our capacities to be infinite and unknowable. 

While nagaoka currently lives and works in Los Angeles, this exhibition presents a sort of homecoming; a return to Portland and to the city of their first solo show in 2022. Like much of the artist’s oeuvre, the captured portraits themselves are a return to the self, a desire to reach inward. nagaoka began exploring notions of home and intimacy within their communities while still living in the Pacific Northwest. The fluid emergence of this collection reflects the natural progression of a life imprinted by the past and ever-reaching. Recent photographs are further released from expectations to understand in totality, and instead bear witness to the act of the image as an interpersonal substitute. Penetrating pops of chrome from a tongue piercing, a chain, or the delicate details on a manicure root the pieces in a fixed reality while still retaining a mystery of place and person. nagaoka asks, where does silence live in the body without a face? Who we are to ourselves differs from who we are to our peers. What would it mean to let it all go? With this understanding, each image on display is a proxy, a refuge, a gentle invitation to shapeshift without fear of abandon.

ricardo nagaoka is an artist based in Los Angeles. They studied photography at the Rhode Island School of Design and hold an MFA from UCLA. In 2022, nagaoka presented a solo exhibition titled At last, I see you at Melanie Flood Projects in Portland, OR. Their work has also been shown in group exhibitions including At Home: In the American West at Aperture Gallery (2019, New York); Keeping Love Close: What Does Love Look Like? at Times Square Arts (2021, New York); and Foam Talent at Foam Museum (2024, Amsterdam) and Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation (2025, Frankfurt). Artists Space will feature their work in a group exhibition opening in New York on September 11, 2025.

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