Nawa was the first student from Yamagata to enroll in the Oil Painting Course at the Tokyo University of the Arts on his first attempt. While in graduate school, he studied in Milan as an Italian government-sponsored student. After returning from Italy, he obtained a doctorate in materials research of nihonga.
Not affiliated with any specific art groups, he lives in his nature-rich hometown, Higashine, Yamagata, where he pursues "realistic painting not as a moving image." His dedicated efforts to master the reality that exists between visual perception and memory evoke the work of the earliest oil painters in Japan.