MASAO NAKAHARA

Nakahara’s painting is influenced by both his upbringing in Japan and his life in Germany, having moved to Dusseldorf in the early 1980’s. He draws heavily from both Japanese and German cultural histories, layering myth, folklore, and personal symbolism. His early references were Fauvist Georges Rouault’s feverish, impasto style of figurative painting, and the hushed cityscapes of Impressionist painter Maurice Utrillo. His current painting is equally influenced by Japanese figurative painter Sekine Shōji, and his long-time friend and peer Yoshitomo Nara, as well as European Expressionist painters such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Willem de Kooning, and Edvard Munch.

Central to Nakahara’s imagery is the theme of impermanence, informed by the Japanese concept of mono no aware (物の哀れ), a notion of the awareness of the transience of. In his painting, the cherry tree appears frequently as a symbol of life’s blossoming beauty and its inevitable passing. Nakahara reworks traditional Japanese folklore, allowing his works to become quiet, poignant bridges between memory, myth, and the ever-changing nature of existence.

Masao Nakahara (b. Saitama, Japan, 1956) lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. He received degrees from Nihon Art School, Tokyo (1980), and Düsseldorf Art Academy (1988). In 2025 he presented Through Time, his first solo exhibition with Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London. In 2026 he will be included in Two Things Called Me, The Urawa Art Museum, Tokyo, and will have a solo exhibition with Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo. Following a thirty year career hiatus, during which time he worked as a translator, Nakahara returned to public recognition in 2021, when at the invitation of his long-time friend Yoshitomo Nara, he was included in tomodachi to: With Friends at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, an exhibition celebrating artists of Japanese descent who studied at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie. Nakahara’s recent solo exhibitions include Walk in the Maze Forest, Sens Gallery, Hong Kong (2023); Daydreams and Memories, Althuis Hofland Fine Arts, Amsterdam (2022); and Departure and Arrival & Fear and Hope, ES 365, Dusseldorf, Germany (2021).

Text courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery.