First and Second Exhibition Rooms

MAKI NA KAMURA

The sky, the mountains, the water, the trees, the rocks; these are from among the elements essential to the composition landscape painting, and Maki Na Kamura's landscapes are no different. Na Kamura work does, however, give extra weight to one element of landscape - the element against which all other elements are juxtaposed - the horizon.

Smooth and gently dissolved, yet exactingly implicit, Na Kamura's brush strokes - whether in oil or watercolor - incorporate techniques from both Western and Asian painting traditions alike. Though at first glance the works might appear more Asian than not, after closer inspection the works prove to contain an originality unique to Na Kamura. The use of negative space acts as a portal, drawing the viewer in, up into the landscape contained within Na Kamura's paintings.

Na Kamura captures this world, this place just beyond the horizon, this Utopia that generations of painters, all over the world, have long been seeking. With every finished painting Na Kamura further explores this Utopia, without a doubt heralding the beginning of a new depiction of landscape.

Haruko Wakae / director

Translation by Jordan Nassar