Minoru Nomata

Minoru Nomata



Minoru Nomata was born in 1955 in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from the Design Department of Tokyo University of the Arts. Around the end of the 1970's, he started to depict themes with architectural motifs.
He had his first solo exhibition entitled "Still" at Sagacho Exhibit Space in 1986, and followed with one called "Arcadia" at Sagacho Exhibit Space in 1988. In 2004, Nomata had a retrospective exhibition "Architecture on Canvas" at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in Shinjuku. Then, in 2011: "Alternative Sights - Landscapes by Minoru Nomata," a large-scale exhibition that included three-dimensional works and two new paintings, held at the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma. Since last April, a well received series of his square drawings has been published weekly at "The Column" of The Asahi Shimbun.


"Nomata has been creating alternative landscapes that only stand on his canvas - inspired by the chimneys, water towers and memories of factories in his hometown. At his first solo exhibition "Still," held at Sagacho Exhibit Space in 1986, he showed 42 paintings that he had created over several years, hanging almost all of them from the ceiling. It was a unique installation that brought a timeless and familiar ambiance to the space.

In recent years Nomata has pushed his imagination toward magnificent landscapes, such as huge towers emitting light and also artificial lakes with horizons. His paintings are suggestive with a hint of expectation and a sense of crisis for the future of human civilization.

In addition, coming just before the Great Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, he had been trying to discover or create an image of human greed itself for his paintings. Actually, his studio in Tokyo had no damage but after the events of March 11 he could not paint anymore. He has said, "It swallowed everything I had been relying on." It took him more than six months before he was able to come back to his easel and start painting once again. Nomata says that the only way for him to set up his working environment again was to just pile basic cubes and columns on top of his canvases."


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