中村一美

Nakamura Kazumi, one of the most dynamic and prolific painters working in Japan today, has for over four decades been producing distinctive non-figurative paintings undergirded by profound contemplation. In the late 1970s, when Nakamura began exploring contemporary art at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music (present Tokyo University of the Arts), the Japanese art scene was dominated by movements that stood in opposition to “making,” such as Mono-ha (the “School of Things”), Conceptualism, and Minimalism. Nakamura studied under Enokura Kōji, a prominent figure in the Mono-ha movement. However, among the younger generation, there emerged a tendency toward reclaiming the practice of making works of art as physical objects, guided by a systematic approach. This shift paved the way for the development of new painting and sculpture, which could be described as “post-Mono-ha,” in the 1980s. As a member of the post-Mono-ha generation, broadly defined, Nakamura fully embarked on his career in the early 1980s. His ambitious goal was to critique, and transcend, Western-style formalist painting, the cultural hegemony of which had been validated by modernist discourse. In a challenge to such self-contained and instantly comprehensible paintings, Nakamura introduced the concept of “differential painting.” Influenced by the linguistic theories of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who held that the meanings of words are derived from their differences from other words, Nakamura argued that “the idea that an artwork’s meaning exists in its difference to others.” This formed the theoretical foundation for Nakamura’s subsequent and ongoing explorations. Nakamura first gained recognition with works such as “Mt. Kitaokusenjō” (1985, The Warehouse, The Rachofsky Collection, Dallas, USA), characterized by bold brushstrokes that fill vertical canvases with Y-shaped figures. The Y motif, described by Nakamura as “suppressing” the painting’s rectangular frame, is a highly simple and abstract form, yet also serves as a signifier of a trees, particularly the mulberry tree. As these trees have historically been cultivated primarily as food for silkworms, the Y shape bears significant social and historical implications. Silk textiles were a cornerstone of Japan’s industrialization policies in the late 19th and early 20th century, but postwar industrial restructuring forced many sericulture practitioners to shut down or shift their business model. As his maternal grandparents were among those engaged in sericulture, in Yamanashi Prefecture, the Y motif has a deeply personal resonance for Nakamura. The subsequent series, “Diagonal Grid,” was developed by repeatedly superimposing the Y motif. “Hermitage I” (1986, collection of the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts), inspired by the depiction of shuttered doors in the 13th-century “Murasaki Shikibu Nikki emaki” (The Diary of Lady Murasaki, hand scroll) (collection of the Gotoh Museum, Tokyo), is a work from this series where Nakamura derives inspiration from the spatial representation techniques of classical Japanese painting. This series introduced a remarkable spatiality which involved horizontal shifts without concentrating on any single point, and earned high acclaim abroad as well as in Japan. In “C Opened” he disrupted successively sliding pictorial space by integrating arcs into this “diagonal grid,” paving the way for his dynamic compositions from the 1990s onward. These series exemplify “differential painting,” with the same formal motif explored through expressionistic strokes, geometric lines, and varied color schemes. Nakamura’s extraordinary originality and skill as a colorist, including his adept use of challenging metallic and fluorescent tones, have been refined through the production of these diverse variations. In the 1990s, amid the flux of post-Cold War global dynamics, Nakamura pursued pictorial structures that represented and critiqued the intricate intertwining of the capitalist market economy, nationalism, and religion, and the way these systems exacerbated human alienation. His original concept of “painting as social semantics” argues that, no matter how abstract and formal imagery might seem, it is inevitably imbued with social contexts and meanings. Nakamura’s emphasis on “meanings” with social dimensions in painting can be traced back to the Y motif, which referenced modern Japanese history through the imagery of the mulberry tree. Additionally, he interpreted and critiqued the reductive, all-over painting structures of American Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism as a manifestation of the desire for global hegemony and cultural homogenization. “Ranging Difference — Broken Shelter” references the coexistence of disparate and inconsistent representations of buildings in the Muromachi period (c. 1336–1573) hanging scroll “Seionji engi” 清園寺縁起 (collection of Seionji, deposited to the Kyoto National Museum) depicting the origins of Seionji Temple, Kyoto. Unlike Nakamura’s earlier works, this painting intentionally demolishes spatial coherence, producing a canvas brimming with disquieting dynamism. His subsequent series, “Broken Hermitage,” pushed this exploration further, expanding the spatiality of “Diagonal Grid” into three dimensions. Conceived as “paintings about all manner of broken structures,” (Nakamura Kazumi, “On ‘Broken Hermitage’,” “Kazumi Nakamura: Broken Hermitage” exh. cat., The Seibu Department Stores / Seibu Art Forum, 1996), these works integrate the concept of “ha” 破 (rupture), evoking sensations and images of Japan’s social and territorial collapse from the bursting of the economic bubble through the Great Hanshin Earthquake and extending to the Great East Japan Earthquake. The term is a reference to the aesthetician and Noh practitioner Zeami’s theory as outlined in the 15th-century text “Flowering Spirit,” where “ha” in the sequence “jo-ha-kyu” 序破急 (introduction, rupture, climax) signifies “incorporation of intricate patterns and intensification of complexity and technique” (“Kazumi Nakamura” exh. cat., Kawagoe City Art Museum, 2023). This may also relate to Noh’s unique dance of the dead (i.e. ghosts). “Broken Hermitage” is a long-running series that extends into the 2020s, embodying one of Nakamura’s major thematic concerns, namely complex and intricate spatial representations that imply movement toward collapse. The imagery in “Broken Hermitage” reminded Nakamura of the figure of a dancer, and this connected to the subsequent work, “Saisoro” 採桑老. This title, which literally translates to “an old man picking mulberry leaves,” refers to the name of a dance associated with gagaku (traditional Japanese court music). Due to an ominous legend that performing it brings one closer to death, the dance is seldom performed. The painting evokes the ethereal figure of a supple dancer, linking the image of Eastern sages, such as venerable elders and saints, with the upright forms of trees. This was followed by “Mourning for the Dead,” which is imbued with an elegy and requiem is dedicated to all the deceased of this world. A Buddhist sense of the sacred is maintained and more directly addressed in his most recent series “Hijiri (Hermit)” (2012-ongoing), initially inspired by the Great East Japan Earthquake. Further deepening his exploration of paintings that confront death, Nakamura has been pursuing themes of death and rebirth. He coined the term “Shokusōchō (Phoenix)” 織桑鳥, a Japanese play on words in which kanji meaning “bird that weaves mulberry” is interpreted as “phoenix” — and this concept evolved in the mid-2000s into “A Bird in its Existence.” “The paintings in the series ‘A Bird in its Existence’ are about flight in all existence. ‘To be’ means ‘to fly;’ only things that fly can exist.” (Nakamura Kazumi, “On ‘A Bird in its Existence’,” “Kazumi Nakamura: A Bird in its Existence” exh. cat., Nantenshi Gallery, 2005). In this series, in painting birds, Nakamura arrived at an answer in his search for in the meaning of painting against the backdrop of global misery from repeated disasters, wars, and terrorism. His series ‘A Bird in its Existence’ has become his most extensive to date, numbering over 370 works as of early 2024. Nakamura has described birds as complex and beautiful beings, and draws inspiration from a wide array of avian imagery such as Korean folk paintings, Archaeopteryx fossils, and pictographs, to build up several figurative matrixes. By taking one of them as a point of departure, he renders figure and ground, line and plane, concept and image, and color and material interchangeable and virtually indistinguishable. This results in paintings that transcend the dichotomy between abstract and figurative, not relying on the schema of Western-style modernism. It can be characterized as an East Asian model of painting with unique structural characteristics. Nakamura’s equation of existence with a bird embodies the significance of painting’s presence in the world, and for him, may be precisely the meaning of painting itself. (Minami Yusuke / Translated by Christopher Stephens) (Published online: 2025-01-07)