About the Exhibition

Karuizawa New Art Museum Gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of the painter of Japanese art, Nagatoshi Shibata, who is also a resident in Karuizawa.

Nagatoshi Shibata (1949-) is the artist known for his mysterious landscape paintings with extensive use of azure colors, Lapis Lazuli and Azurite as base materials, so-called ultramarine blue (Gunjyo in Japanese) in the world of mineral pigments. Focusing on mountains, full moon, sun and bare winter trees, he creates an atmosphere which is reminiscent of Japanese dry garden in Zen temples.

By his broad experience of traveling over the world where he got familiar with life and death of many creatures, Shibata began to devote himself to draw the mountains as objects of prayer. In the realms of nature, the presence of “I” of human-being vanishes into air: there are only left the moon, the sky, and the mountains which have existed for hundreds of millions of years and perfectly blended in. His composition consists of exquisite balance of counterweight and harmony, in which the mountains as embodiment of mountain worship and the full moon occupying the mountain crest in the stillness are boldly portrayed into the azure sky.

Shibata’s works using abundantly his self-made natural pigments are nothing short of strong energy of the earth.

In this exhibition, as well as the works of Japanese paintings, numerous collage works are in parallel displayed including the pieces dealing with the theme of his native place, Sado, in Niigata prefecture; homage pieces to the Zen monk Ryokan (1758-1831) who came from the same province. In any works, Shibata has succeeded in creating natural hue by coloring with mineral pigments and by emphasizing effectively the materials like antiqualian books that he found in the course of his journey; kimono fabrics and gold leaves from his family-owned kimono shop; etc.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to this precious opportunity.