Craig Nagasawa's most recent experiments in the studio find him working on several related charcoal drawings simultaneously, making liberal use of the eraser, and documenting his unexpected discoveries with handmade stop-motion animated videos. This way of working has revealed a language of symbolic motifs that relate to the historical tensions inherent in his Japanese and Japanese American identity, including clocks, record players, atomic mushroom clouds, and the destruction of Salt Lake City's Japantown.

Nagasawa does not intend these to be static views fixed with a final meaning. Rather, they represent an iterative, speculative way of working open to discovery and multiple solutions, one which parallels his mission of connecting the turbulent past to the troubled yet open-ended present. These provisional works confront the stereotyped perceptions of Japanese American identity with something closer and truer to the variety of individuals' lives. Juxtaposing playful and dreamlike elements with violent historical events, Nagasawa’s drawings invite the viewer into a deeper experience of his subjectivity and specific path through history.