Dreamlike but almost realistic from Japan

IT IS OFTEN a pleasure to see an exhibition of works by an artist, whose existence was hitherto unknown to me. In this case, the artist is the Japanese born Minoru Nomata, who was born in 1955 and lives as well as works in Japan. The exhibition of his works, currently at White Cube in Masons Yard (near Piccadilly) until the 24th of August 2024, consists mainly of paintings (acrylic on canvas).

At first sight, his paintings look almost like photographs. However, after a few moments’ contemplation, they can be seen to depict subjects – often structures and aspects of nature – that are at the same time unreal and almost but not quite real.  His subject matter is not quite surreal, but is an unusually dreamy interpretation of the real world. None of the paintings on display contained any signs of human presence. The gallery’s website (www.whitecube.com/gallery-exhibitions/minoru-nomata-masons-yard-2024)  includes the following:

“According to the artist, ‘construction, repair and demolition’ occur simultaneously in his paintings; they confer, too, upon the simultaneity of past, present and future distinct to Nomata’s work. As he states, he sets out to create worlds that ‘are not “somewhere”, but “nowhere”, in a position that helps [him] find a place to head for’. Devoid of identifiable temporal or geographical markers as they may be, Nomata’s ambivalent landscapes speak directly to humankind’s long-standing existential concerns about what place, if any, it has in the world.”

As I viewed the pictures, which I found aesthetically pleasing, I felt they had the ‘realness’ of images that appear in dreams, yet at the same time they seemed as if they could almost be depictions of reality. In brief, I found them both attractive and intriguing, and can recommend this show to everyone.