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As part of the ‘Introductions’ strand of our new online exhibition programme, White Cube is delighted to present the work of Tokyo based painter Minoru Nomata.
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Over the past four decades, Japanese artist Minoru Nomata has created a lexicon of imaginary buildings, monoliths, ‘eco-scapes’ and hybrid aerostats. In his singular, striking and heroic forms, Nomata celebrates the machine aesthetic and ingenuity of structural design throughout the ages. As Motoaki Hori, Chief Curator at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery describes it: ‘The exquisite draftsmanship and unique formal imagination of these paintings produces strong, ebullient architectural forms that transcend real time and space.’
Having grown up in the industrial Tokyo district of Meguro, at a time when Japan was undergoing rapid economic growth, Nomata became fascinated by urban design and its distinct architecture. At university, he studied European and Asian art, particularly classical Islamic patterns, and became drawn to the Machine Age and the modernism of American Precisionist, Charles Sheeler. It is these formative influences that have remained a constant in shaping Nomata’s imagery.
Working in series, Nomata consistently returns to the rationale of a single central motif; a superstructure anchored to land, sea or rising into the air. Although appearing as functional buildings, with entrances, apertures, stairways and cladding – elements that allow the viewer to orientate themselves by providing a sense of archetypal familiarity – the functionality of the structures remain elusive. Amalgamating past and present, they equally allude to the future.
'Introductions: Minoru Nomata’ is curated by Irene Bradbury, Director of Artist Liaison.
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Photo: Toru Kogure
Minoru Nomata
Minoru Nomata (born 1955, Tokyo) lives and works in Tokyo. He studied design at the Tokyo University of the Arts, graduating in 1979 before taking up a position in an advertising agency in Tokyo. After five years Nomata left in order to focus on his painting practice, and in 1986 held his debut exhibition ‘STILL – Quiet Garden’ at the Sagacho Exhibit Space, an alternative gallery in Tokyo run by Kazuko Koike. Further solo exhibitions include Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo (1993); Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2004); The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan (2010) and most recently at the Sagacho Archives, Tokyo (2012, 2018). He is currently a Professor at the Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo.
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‘Painting is an escapist world, but I would like it to be a place to become energised [...] rather than a place to stay.’
- Minoru Nomata, Alternative Sights, 2010
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Early Works
An external staircase leads up to the summit of the structure in Land-escape 8 (1992), where a trio of medieval flags flutter in the wind. Two buttresses supporting the front elevation provide a visual symmetry and flank two arches, one above the other, offering vistas into and through the building itself.
During the mid-90s, Nomata’s daughter fell dangerously ill and, unable to paint, Nomata found himself repeatedly drawing mountains or rock formations. Finding solace in nature, as he described it, ‘I clung to them’.
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Minoru NomataLand-Escape 8, 1992Acrylic on canvas80.3 x 100 cm | 31 5/8 x 39 3/8 in.
83.2 x 103 x 4.3 cm | 32 3/4 x 40 9/16 x 1 11/16 in. (framed)Find out more -
Minoru NomataBourou-16, 1995Acrylic on canvas116.7 x 65.3 cm | 45 15/16 x 25 11/16 in.
118.3 x 66.7 x 3.6 cm | 46 9/16 x 26 1/4 x 1 7/16 in. (framed)Find out more -
Minoru NomataBourou-9, 1995Acrylic on canvas51 x 80.3 cm | 20 1/16 x 31 5/8 in.
52.3 x 82 x 3.7 cm | 20 9/16 x 32 5/16 x 1 7/16 in. (framed)Find out more
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‘Nomata’s paintings have a strange presence like a living entity […] The paintings carry an atmosphere that seems to prove their existence. Quietly, or somewhat composedly, they seem to await our arrival.’
– Elia Taniguchi, Points of View, 2004
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Windscapes
Set against darkened skies, the enigmatic ‘Windscapes’ appear aerodynamic yet are grounded like obelisks. In discussing these works, Nomata quotes from Paul Cézanne’s theoretical treatise: ‘Treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, with everything put in perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed toward a central point.’
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Minoru NomataWindscape-8, 1997Acrylic on canvas51.3 x 100.2 cm | 20 3/16 x 39 7/16 in.
52.6 x 101.5 x 3.5 cm | 20 11/16 x 39 15/16 x 1 3/8 in. (framed)Find out more -
Minoru NomataWindscape-12, 1997Acrylic on canvas100.1 x 65.4 cm | 39 7/16 x 25 3/4 in.
101.4 x 66.7 x 3.5 cm | 39 15/16 x 26 1/4 x 1 3/8 in. (framed)Find out more
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‘The reason why some of the circular structures appear in the ‘Points of View’ series is because I wanted to paint a nameless architecture.’
– Minoru Nomata, Architecture on Canvas, 2004
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Points of View
Supported by a framework of wooden scaffolding and roped-off areas, the circular concrete cross-section of Points of View–8 (2004) typifies Nomata’s underlying interest in the incomplete and its potential.
Wooden scaffolding recurs in Points of View–19 (2004) as a tree appears in a state of restoration, enclosed and protected by army green canopies, drawing our attention to issues surrounding deforestation.
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Minoru Nomata
Points of View-8, 2004 Acrylic on canvas
80.5 x 116.7 cm | 31 11/16 x 45 15/16 in.
81.8 x 118 x 3.5 cm | 32 3/16 x 46 7/16 x 1 3/8 in. (framed) Find out more -
‘[in my paintings] construction, repair, and demolition are going on simultaneously.
- Minoru Nomata, Alternative Sights, 2010
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Minoru Nomata
Babel 2012, 2012Titled after the biblical tower, Babel 2012 (2012) is Nomata’s dystopic imagining of a centralised government where the confluence of ‘construction, repair, and demolition are going on simultaneously’.
In essence, these structures are monuments representing the human condition: they symbolise our strengths and vulnerabilities. From growth and expansion through to mechanisation and power generated by greenhouses, wind-turbines and solar energy, they serve to highlight ongoing environmental issues.
Find out more -
‘Today, I am who I am, We are who we are
And everything is, as it is
The pollen which we feed on’
– Pierre Barouh, Le Pollen, 1982
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Minoru Nomata
Seeds 12, 2004Inspired by Pierre Barouh’s music, Nomata’s ‘Seeds’ drawings are the product of distilled memories and like his paintings, portray emblems of modernity.
Find out more -
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Minoru NomataSeeds 13, 2004Gesso, colour pencil, pastel and charcoal on plywood27.5 x 59.4 cm | 10 13/16 x 23 3/8 in.
38.2 x 70.1 x 3.2 cm | 15 1/16 x 27 5/8 x 1 1/4 in. (framed)Find out more -
Minoru NomataSeeds 21, 2004Gesso, colour pencil, pastel and charcoal on plywood91.5 x 40 cm | 36 x 15 3/4 in.
103 x 51.5 x 3.2 cm | 40 9/16 x 20 1/4 x 1 1/4 in. (framed)Find out more -
Minoru NomataSeeds 24, 2004Gesso, colour pencil, pastel and charcoal on plywood16 x 27.5 cm | 6 5/16 x 10 13/16 in.
28.2 x 39.7 x 3.2 cm | 11 1/8 x 15 5/8 x 1 1/4 in. (framed)Find out more
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Skyglow and Light Structures
Both series are night time views of towers; Skyglow V15 is floodlit and the other, V1, is a light-emitting beacon, while in Light Structure–2 (2007), a dynamic surge of energy illuminates the block from the ground upwards, dissipating as it travels.
Influenced by the Swedish 19th_century painter Eugene Jansson, Nomata was drawn to the melancholy of the twilight, bathing the landscape as it did in transient blue. He reproduced this quality time and again in his own landscapes, with artificial lakes and the ‘white’ summer nights of Scandinavia.
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Minoru Nomata
Skyglow-H11, 2008 Acrylic on canvas
53.2 x 145.5 cm | 20 15/16 x 57 5/16 in.
Find out more -
Ascending descending–3 (2018) depicts a giant weather balloon just above the horizon, reminiscent of the red sun of Yusaku Kamekura’s 1964 Olympic poster. Tethered to the ground, this airborne spirit or orb floats in a suspended state, partly cast in shadow. The visionary architect, Terunobu Fujimori, sees Nomata as a ‘prophetic painter’ in whose imagery is a ‘foreshadowing of this future’.
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Minoru Nomata
Ascending descending-3, 2018 Oil on canvas
80.5 x 100.3 cm | 31 11/16 x 39 1/2 in.
Find out more -
Elements Drawings
In April 2011, Nomata was invited by the newspaper The Asahi Shimbun, to contribute, on a weekly basis, a 15-centimetre square drawing, similar in scale to that of a CD cover. The request came a month after the seismic earthquake and ensuing Tsunami that took place on the north eastern coast of Japan. Unable to paint, Nomata turned his attention to this series of drawings, attempting to grasp the innate sorrow of ‘Japan after the disaster’. Nomata accumulated over two hundred of these drawings, collectively called the ‘Elements’ series.
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Minoru NomataSquare Drawing 22, 2011Watercolour, coloured pencil and pencil on paperImage size: 15 x 15 cm | 5 7/8 x 5 7/8 in.
Paper size: 31.2 x 23.2 cm | 12 5/16 x 9 1/8 in.Find out more -
Minoru NomataSquare Drawing 31, 2011Pencil on paperImage size: 15 x 15 cm | 5 7/8 x 5 7/8 in.
Paper size: 31.2 x 23.2 cm | 12 5/16 x 9 1/8 in.Find out more -
Minoru NomataSquare Drawing 117, 2013Watercolour, coloured pencil and pencil on paperImage size: 15 x 15 cm | 5 7/8 x 5 7/8 in.
Paper size: 31.2 x 23.2 cm | 12 5/16 x 9 1/8 in.Find out more
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‘The mission of these small pictures is to realize indistinct signs or indications that I can feel, in the forms of ‘structures’ or ‘situations’ [...] and I am always wishing that my architectural visions will eventually herald something positive.’
- Minoru Nomata, 2012
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White Cube Paris Salon
15 - 30 October 2020
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