ALLEZ CIRCUS
is a design studio company run by Koji Nagai and his partner, Naoko. Nagai is an artist specialized in collage design. Naoko assists Nagai and manages the business of their company.
BIO
Nagai was born and raised in Hiroshima, Japan. He studied graphic design at Hiroshima Designer College. After working at several design companies, he became a freelance designer at age of twenty-four. Nagai earned a wide variety of awards from Hiroshima Advertising Association for his design works in posters, brochures, and calendars. At age of thirty-five, Nagai was attracted to the world of free spirit of the collage design. Nagai generates ideas for his collage arts based on his first impression of the materials. The interfusion of the different types of elements, which are old and new, fiction and nonfiction, life and death, and western and oriental leads to Nagai’s new design creation of the collage arts. Nagai currently lives in Hiroshima with his partner, Naoko.
STATEMENT
I am a big fan of Tadanori Yokoo, Shinro Ohtake, Tadashi Tonoshiki, Joseph Cornell, Kurt Schwitters, and Peter Beard. Each of these artists has given me great inspiration, and has influenced my design work. I use many different materials mainly from art books, photo books, magazines, and newspapers. I also use stamps, which were used around the world, any types of boxes, stones, and the things drifted to the shore. I sometimes developed ideas from everyday materials such as buttons or pins. I live a simple life and the simple life brings me to the world of collage arts. I truly love collage art and I live in the world of collage art everyday.