NYAB Event - Makoto Fujimura “Charis”

Makoto Fujimura “Charis”

Dillon Gallery

This event has ended.

Makoto Fujimura’s exhibit “Charis” which is primarily composed of three monumental gold compositions completed over the last 10 years in New York, shows the significance of his most powerful work; December Hour, Golden Fire, and Charis.

In painting December Hour, he navigated between thoughts of life and death. Dedicating the piece to a dying friend, he prayed desperately as he layered gold over gold, struggling to understand God’s wisdom in taking someone so young.

Golden Fire develops this theme further, taking cues from Dante’s Divine Comedy. This painting focuses on the theme of fire, particularly significant in our post 9/11 reality. Fujimura wanted to depict gold rising in the fire of destruction, and at the same time, letting the surface also speak of the purifying power of fire.

Charis, further emphasizes the Golden Fire language. In homage to Willem de Kooning, gold moves in a dispersed, gestured movement. His interest in abstraction is in the essentiation of reality, which he believes, de Kooning was interested in as well. In that search, he creates space that is both flat and spatial. Gold is that paradox: it creates space (by being semi-transparent) and remains flat (by being mirror-like) at the same time. Perhaps the only way that an “essential flatness” can be full of created space is by using gold.

Gold, in all civilizations, symbolizes divinity. The act of layering gold, to Fujimura, is to invite the divine reality (multi-dimensionality) to break into our broken (flat) reality. “Charis,” the Greek word that St. Paul used for “grace,” is shorthand for the word “charisma,” which means gift. Art is a gift, and essentially, art is grace. The more Fujimura journeys deeply into the effects of gold and mineral pigments, the more he is taken by the refractive possibilities of the materials, while at the same time, unable to contain or control the glory built into them.

Having been taught as a student in Japan, that one must use the best materials in order to truly get to know the ancient craft, he began using the finest gold and minerals he could purchase. Fujimura is now considered one of the most important mid-career painters working in the "Nihonga" (Japanese painting) style. He is recognized both in the United States and Japan for his contribution to the revitalization of this ancient technique, as his innovations have inspired an entire generation of artists to follow in his style.