There is a precise, contemplative beauty to the work of Japanese painter Nobuyuki Takahashi. For this exhibition, Takahashi has focused on daily observations of his surrounding environment – scenes from a neighborhood walk, or a view out the train window. Yet rather than expressing the modern world’s chaos, through careful elimination of extraneous detail Takahashi offers us an invitation into stillness and consideration.
Many of these works depict the sun, a subject prevalent in Takahashi’s oeuvre. Feeling an initial sense of guilt for returning to this theme so frequently, he eventually succumbed, and Seven Suns was born. By masterful rendering of light, reflection, and warmth, Takahashi creates an atmosphere both intoxicating and serene.
On the rare occasion the built world enters a painting, it occupies only a small portion of the frame, and is often silhouetted. His work strips from us the notion that humanity is central to the human experience. He seems to be saying, look around you – there is so much to enjoy.
Nobuyuki Takahashi was born in 1968 in Kanagawa, Japan. He graduated from Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music in 1991. He has shown extensively throughout Japan over the past twenty plus years, in both group and solo exhibitions. His work is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura and Hayama, among others. He currently lives and works in Zushi, in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
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