Masayoshi Nojo
b. 1989, Kanagawa, Japan

Masayoshi Nojo completed his MA in Japanese Paintings in 2015 from the Kyoto University of Art and Design. With his unique and complex techniques, he combines contemporary visual languages with Japanese aesthetics, exploring the themes of memory and the passage of time.

​

During his studies, he became interested in collective memory. To help audiences remember it, he selects mixed media, including photography, to eliminate the arbitrariness of creation. He abstracts form and colors from photographs as the minimum constituent elements of image in memories. Time’ s passage was depicted by

seventeenth-century Japanese painter Korin Ogata’ s curving stream in silver. Silver reflects time’ s passage as it changes in color through oxidization. This silver stream became a traditional motif for the passage of time, and its influence can be found among many European artists, including Klimt.

Here, inspired by Ogata’ s curving stream, he applied marbling to the base panel and printed the form via silkscreen, using silver foil on the panel. To audiences, this feels like a mirage, the pursuit of distant memories.

 

Rooted in Japanese art history, Nojo’s use of silver – ethereal and shimmering – is particularly reminiscent of Ogata Kōrin’s celebrated work during the Edo Period in seventeenth-century Japan. Kōrin’s marbled silver rivers, often painted upon byōbu folding screens, were symbolic of time’s flow due to the changing colour of the metal through oxidisation. This depiction of time has since been adopted as a motif by artists worldwide such as Gustav Klimt and has become a cornerstone of a form of Japanese art known today as Rinpa (literally meaning “school of Kōrin”). With his most recent series, entitled Mirage, Nojo uses this sense of time to conjure a sense of deja-vu in the viewer – evoking a memory tantalisingly close, yet just out of reach.

 

This exploration of time and memory is achieved using an innovative variety of mixed media and techniques, with each stage meticulously executed. Firstly, Nojo prepares the foundation of his canvas with a marbled layer of acrylic paint, reminiscent of the river in Kōrin’s seminal work Red and White Plum Blossoms. Nojo then photographs, selects, and carefully adjusts each image before transferring the image to the canvas via silk screening – allowing the marbled layer beneath to shine through and to create an abstracted, contemporary twist on the work. Finally, layers of aluminium and silver foil are applied to the canvas, highly symbolic and recreating a sense of intangible distant memories.

​

Collections 

​

Sagawa Art Museum, UESHIMA COLLECTION, DMG MORI SEIKI CO.,LTD., OCA TOKYO, Universal Music Japan,

THE PRINCE GALLERY TOKYO KIOICHO, HOTEL MYSTAYS PREMIER Group (Japan)

 

 

Art Fairs

​

2021 ART FAIR TOKYO 2021 (YUKIKO MIZUTANI / Tokyo)

2020 Contemporary Istanbul 2020 OVR (JD Malat Gallery / Turkey)

2019 Contemporary Istanbul 2019 (JD Malat Gallery / Turkey)

Art Central Hong Kong 2019 (Gallery Art Composition / Hong Kong)

ZONAMACO 2019 (JD Malat Gallery / Mexico)

2018 KIAF 2018 ART SEOUL (Gallery Art Composition / COEX Seoul, Korea)

VOLTA NEW YORK 2018 (Gallery Art Composition / PIER90, NY)

ART FAIR TOKYO 2018 (Gallery Art Composition / Tokyo)

ARTIST’ S FAIR KYOTO (The Museum of Kyoto Annex / Kyoto)

2017 ART JAKARTA 2017 (Gallery Art Composition / JAKARTA, Indonesia)

ART FAIR TOKYO 2017 (Gallery Art Composition / Tokyo