Minoru Nomata creates works with imaginary buildings as motifs, using various techniques such as paintings, sculptures, lithographs, and drawings. Nomata, often described as a 'painter of signs,' expresses the matters of everyday life as an imaginary building. His futuristic and retrospective work offers viewers an opportunity to think not only about the modern city, but also about the future of the earth.
The starting point of Nomata, who sees 'imaginary architecture' as a language, is in his hometown where he spent his childhood. In a commercial and industrial area where town factories and houses coexist, he became interested in the structural elements of chimneys and steel towers, while absorbing traditional designs under his parents who run a dye shop. Especially in Tokyo in the mid-1960s, urban development was actively carried out before the Olympics, and while expectations for a new city were raised high in the construction of Tokyo Tower, Nomata also felt an upsurge in the future.
In the last year at Tokyo University of the Arts, Nomata encountered the works of Charles Sheeler, a representative artist of precisionism, and 'The City' series by Thomas Bayrle of media art, which encouraged him to draw architectures as a motif that embodies his thoughts. The works of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, musicians Brian Eno and Erik Satie also had a great influence on Nomata's world of work.
Realistic architectural depictions and mysterious landscapes invite viewers to a world that transcends time and space. Déjà vu but non-existent buildings, unpopulated land, vast skies, and tranquility. He portrays his feelings for the modern city on the various elements that make up the screen. However, never does he want to make a "correct answer" for understanding the work. The freedom of appreciation given by the artist broadens the range of interpretation and realizes the construction of a new world of work while fusing with the viewers backgrounds.
Encounter with this unknown world will greatly shake the viewer's sensibility. This sensation itself is the essence of Nomata's work, and it guides us to discover the universe hidden within ourselves. Along with the practice of Nomata's work through imaginative architecture, this experience could possibly give people the opportunity to rethink the changing relationship between modern cities and humans, and at the same time, could also have people to rethink of something transcendental that continues to exist with a magnificent rhythm far beyond human time.
TARO NASU will hold a solo exhibition in Japan for the first time in 4 years for Nomata, focusing on his 6 new works.
Press release courtesy Taro Nasu.
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