"Golden Sea is a retrospective monograph of my career, and yet it is also about one painting...Golden Sea also borrows its gold transfer technique from my mentor and professor Matazo Kayama (1927-2004), whose lineage of Rimpa tradition I carry with me even though I am an American working in New York City and Princeton...It was Kayama-sensei who imbued in me the 'third color' of gold and silver particularly the idea that Japanese metal leafs, because they are so thin, can be transferred like monotypes.  The 'secret ingredient' behind the Golden Sea transfer of gold is a Japanese hand woven silk which is made in a strict traditional manner but is no longer produced today.  Therefore, Golden Sea is a homage to and a lament for dying traditions, as well as an expression of the sublimity inherent in precious materials." 

from Golden Sea monograph, Introduction

Olana series began as my homage to Hudson River painter Fredric Church, after visiting the historic Olana estate in upstate New York.  This summer the work was honored to be  exhibited there at Olana Historic Site along with the work of Marina Abramovic, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, R.O. Blechman, DJ Spooky and Annie Leibovitz.

I am looking forward to visiting Baylor University to lecture in November.  Dr. Thomas Hibbs has given a lecture as part of their Freshman Honor's program, and you can listen in here. The exhibit at Martin Museumwill open on October 17th and closes November 13th.

I began to use gold, in the leaf form as well as in the powder form, very early on in my studies of Nihonga (literally “Japan-painting”). I was taught as a student that I must use the best materials in order to truly get to know the ancient craft. So, despite the cost involved, my MFA thesis painting (see River Grace) used the best gold and minerals that I could purchase. I wrote in River Grace about the experience of encountering the extravagance of beauty leading to a profound wrestling of faith and art. The three major pieces that I’ve done in the last ten years in New York reveal the consistency (or stubbornness) of my insistence on continuing to use these materials, but with diverse results.

Golden Fire develops this theme further. Taking cues from Dante’s Divine Comedy, this piece focuses on the theme of fire, particularly significant in our post 9-11 reality. I 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.

My latest painting, Charis, further emphasizes the Golden Fire language. In homage to de Kooning, gold moves in a dispersed, gestured movement. Critic Clement Greenberg did not approve of De Kooning’s paintings as pure abstraction since de Kooning did not deny the “essential flatness of a painted space.”1 I am interested in the de Kooning that failed to fulfill Greenbergian definition of abstraction. My interest in abstraction is in the essentiation of reality, which, I believe, de Kooning was interested in as well. In that search, I became interested in creating space that is both flat and spatial at the same time. 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.

[1] Calvin Tomkins, Off the Wall, Penguin Books, Pg. 167

Makoto Fujimura's large scale works have been commissioned by major public spaces such as CNN/Time Warner building (Oxford House) in Taikoo Place, Hong Kong, Kikkoman Corporation in Tokyo, The Plumed Horse Restaurant in Saratoga, CA., Rumson Capital in Red Bank, New Jersey, New Haven Presterian Church in Connecticut, DAMDACO headquarters in Kansas City, as well as many private homes.

Water Flames series followed Four Quartets in 2005, and was exhibited at Sara Tecchia Roma in Chelsea, and Katzen Art Museum in Washington D.C.  Water Flames took Dante's "The Divine Comedy" as an inspiration, and drawing from the mystical tradition that states that the flames of judgment is in one accord with flames of sanctification.

Splendor of the Medium (2004) comprised several abstract works relying on the refractive properties of the layers of minerals Fujimura uses. Philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, who wrote the catalogue essay, stated that the paintings "present the repose of harmony and reconciliation within this world." Exhibited at Kristen Frederickson Contemporary Art a few blocks from Ground Zero, New York City, the paintings and installations mediated the complex reality of an artist living and working in the "splintered condition of culture as a kaleidoscope of common struggles"

Images of Grace began in 1996, leading to the second solo exhibit at Dillon Gallery (then in SoHo on West Broadway) in 1997.  "Grace" (Greek word "Charis") is a word has been a catalyst for many of Fujimura's paintings.  Fujimura stated at an artist talk lecture at Dillon Gallery, "Art mirrors this struggle and captures the process of letting go. Every stroke pushes the painting to sacrifice itself: every creative act destroys something previously built. Imagination reveals not new vistas but revelations of reality behind reality. All art points to a transaction between reality of the seen and reality of the unseen."

The second solo exhibit at Dillon Gallery in 1999 was an exhibit called "Hours," inspired by the Book of Hours, medieval devotional book of prayer.

Grace is the thread that connects the reality of the seen and the unseen.