Imagined horizons

Minoru Nomata’s art stands at the crossing of the real and the imagined, creating structures that seem both ancient and futuristic. His work, characterised by solitary architecture and vast landscapes, invites viewers into a world where time and space are fluid concepts. 

hube: Your work often features fantastical, solitary structures that seem both ancient and futuristic. How do you conceptualise these ‘imaginary architectures’, and what influences their unique forms?

Minoru Nomata: I always have in mind the image of a circle, a triangle and a square being released into space and forming vertically. At the same time, there is the act of piling up different materials, solidifying them, and combining them in a playful way. The theme of my work is quite simple and nothing special, which I suppose is one of the reasons why the viewer cannot specify the time setting.

I have been influenced by every single event that happens around me, but also worldwide. My work is a reaction to something, and my experiences and the information I receive change its form into some kind of shapes, colours, or shades, influenced by the state of my mind.

h: You’ve mentioned that your process feels like ‘daydreaming in an awakened state of reality’. Could you tell us about a specific piece where this feeling was particularly strong during its creation?

MN: Originally, ‘daydreaming’ was the word I used in an interview to convey that my work is not fantasy. I present it as if it were a possible scenario in the real world, whereas fantasy is something that never happens. It is not a completely real world, but it is not a completely false world either, and ‘daydreaming in an awakened state of reality’ was the closest I could come to describing the position of my creations, between real and fantasy. This concept applies to all my works, so there is no particular piece in which I feel this idea is expressed more effectively than in others.

h: You’ve cited influences like Philip K. Dick and Brian Eno. How do literature and music shape your visual work, particularly in your recent Continuum series?

MN: Music and literature have encouraged me in many aspects of my life, but I don’t refer to specific works; I feel influenced more on a conceptual level. The encounter with ambient music gave me the opportunity to question existing frameworks, and science fiction literature counteracted my reluctance to think freely. Music and novels are something I need to amplify how I feel about the information I receive every day and help me to put it down on paper or canvas. 

I read On the Beach by Nevil Shute while I was working on the Continuum series because the seriousness of the situation, with constant conflict, climate change, and other worrying information flooding in from around the world, forced me to think more than ever about the world of tomorrow. On the Beach is a novel published in 1959, and it is about the last moments of human beings in the aftermath of a nuclear war. The novel is filled with a heartbreaking yet quiet atmosphere, and a similar feeling could be said to surround the Continuum work.

h: Growing up in an industrial area of Tokyo, how did the environment of factories and traditional housing shape your artistic vision and themes? How do your memories of growing up in industrial Tokyo influence your depiction of these ephemeral, almost haunting structures in your Ghost series?
MN:  I grew up in a small factory area, less than 15 minutes by bus from the famous Shibuya Scramble Crossing. A chimney about 30 metres high stood next to my house, and I liked to look into the factories where people worked. It is true that the place where I grew up had a great influence on the style of my work, but the imagination develops in the subconscious and has a rather spontaneous process without logical plans.

In the Ghost series, I tried to capture ‘phenomena’, ‘memories’ and ‘sights’ on a canvas, and it has quite a strong relationship with the city of Tokyo. I was able to connect these elements by finding an afterimage of a building – the product of my memory of standing in the empty place where the building had been demolished. It only appeared because it was Tokyo, where demolition and construction happened everywhere in a short time.

h: Your work captures a unique blend of desolation and sublimity. How does your personal emotional landscape inform these vast, silent architectures?

MN: To be honest, I have no emotional landscapes that I can put into works of art. I draw to fulfil something that I do not have. As for sublimity, that is also something I do not have in me, so I always try to get that feeling when I go out of the studio in the evening to look at the sky. What I see in everyday life seems to take on a different tone under the evening sky, with a stronger contrast, to the extent that the original purpose of the artificial object is forgotten. It gives me a feeling of stepping back from the active state of things at their height, and I feel that this is somewhat similar to the notion of the sublime.

Going back to the themes of ‘lack’ and ‘fulfilment’, when I was a child, I always made what I wanted out of a piece of wood, and the basic idea has not changed since then. What I draw speaks for something that I feel is missing in the world I see. I imagine that the degree and variety of the feeling of unfulfillment determines the range of the expression.

h: In your latest works, you explore immense hydrological formations. What drove you to delve into these subaqueous themes, and how do they connect with the terrestrial and aerial motifs in your previous work?

MN: I have been working on depicting planets with enough water and oxygen, and I feel that people’s perception of my work changes slightly over time. I expected this because I have tried to include many elements so that the artwork cannot be understood from just one point of view, but I did not expect the environmental issue to become so serious in such a short time.

My concern about the environment is increasing as more and more anomalies and natural disasters are happening all over the world. Still, I must stress that there is no intention to preach or guide anyone through my work. Removing the message is one of the most important processes of my practice. This is because I always hope to make some kind of device that will expand people’s imagination or make them wonder.

h: Having been a professor and a practising artist, how do you view your impact on the next generation of artists? What legacy do you hope to leave through both your teaching and your art?

MN: I taught at an art university for about ten years, but I found that art is not something that can be taught. I can teach the basics, but it is up to each individual how to give form to his or her innate personality. To be an artist means spending your whole life asking questions and searching for answers to what you want to express. I believe that the only way to get to where you want to be is to find your own way, not to be guided.

A legacy is just one of the outcomes, if there is one, and it is entirely up to the next generation of artists how they value my work. I have no ambition to leave a legacy. My motivation to keep on creating is to improve something that I was not satisfied with in my previous work. All I think is that I want to make something better.