Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is pleased to present Floating Through Time, Japanese artist Masao Nakahara’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
Masao Nakahara’s four-decade practice unfolds as a meditation on memory and the quiet transition between life and the afterlife. Rather than following a linear timeline, his paintings and sculptures blend childhood recollections with present-day imagery, creating a form of strange yet tender visual poetry. He situates his innocent, ageless figures within hazy dreamscapes, variously drifting downstream by paddleboat, gazing out to sea, embracing in their homes, or resting in fields.
Nakahara’s painting is influenced by both his upbringing in Japan and his life in Germany, having moved to Dusseldorf in the early 1980s. He draws heavily on both Japanese and German cultural histories, layering myth, folklore, and personal symbolism. His early references include Georges Rouault’s feverish impasto style of figurative painting, and the hushed cityscapes of Post-Impressionist painter Maurice Utrillo. Several works quote Utrillo’s naïve, thickly outlined compositions, including the surrealistic Sea in the City, in which two figures in a rowboat float serenely past flooded skyscrapers.His painting is equally influenced by Japanese figurative painter Sekine Shōji, and his long-time friend and peer Yoshitomo Nara, as well as Western Expressionist painters such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Willem de Kooning, and Edvard Munch.
Central to Nakahara’s imagery is the theme of impermanence, informed by the Japanese philosophy of mono no aware (物の哀れ), an awareness of the transience of all things. The most common symbol of this concept is the Sakura, or cherry blossom; the cherry tree appears frequently in the artist’s work as a metaphor for the fleeting nature of beauty and the ephemerality of life itself. Nakahara reworks traditional Japanese folklore, allowing his works to act as poignant bridges between memory, myth, and the ever-changing nature of existence. Shaped by his childhood fear of death, his paintings act as a conduit for a deeper appreciation of the present moment. ‘Knowing that my death was not the end of the world, and there were things that would continue to exist even without me, I felt much better’, he has said. ‘I think the fact there is something that will last forever is my salvation and hope’.
Masao Nakahara (b. Saitama, Japan, 1956) lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. He received degrees from Nihon Art School, Tokyo (1980), and Düsseldorf Art Academy (1988). Nakahara was brought to recognition in 2021 when, at the invitation of his long-time friend Yoshitomo Nara, he was included in tomodachi to: With Friends at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, an exhibition celebrating artists of Japanese descent. He has since been included in Rai-Zen-Da, a group exhibition at Kunsthalle Trier (2024). Nakahara’s recent solo exhibitions include Daydreams and Memories, Althuis Hofland Fine Arts, Amsterdam (2022); and Departure and Arrival & Fear and Hope, ES 365, Dusseldorf, Germany (2021).
