Minoru Nomata (B. 1955) lives and works in Tokyo. He studied Design at the Tokyo University of the Arts. After graduating in 1979, Nomata worked at an advertising agency as an art director. At the end of 1984, he left the company to focus on his own creative work. He held his first solo exhibition “STILL – Quiet Garden” in 1986 at the Sagacho Exhibit Space in Tokyo. It was a place with a concept of an alternative space, which was neither an art museum nor a commercial gallery, and was run by Kazuko Koike until 2000. Over the past four decades, he has continued to explore his own creative style, featuring imaginary structures and architecture, producing a body of works including paintings, drawings, lithographs and several wooden sculptures. 

Further solo exhibitions include Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo (1993); Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2004); The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan (2010); Sagacho Archives, Tokyo (2012, 2018), De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2022) and most recently at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2023). Until recently, Nomata was a Professor at the Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo.

Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?

I was born in 1955 in a semi-industrial area near Shibuya, Tokyo. My parents ran a small dyeing house that handled kimono fabrics. To the right of our house, there was a bathhouse with a chimney and a liquor store, to our left was a snack cracker factory, and in front were a woodworking shop and a tailor’s shop. Although there was a Meguro river, known as a famous cherry blossom viewing spot, the riverbank was made of concrete, and there was hardly any natural environment – it was Japan itself in the midst of development at that time. I had few occasions to go out with my family in my childhood though, I still vividly remember seeing the Tokyo Tower under construction in 1958, when I was three years old with my grandfather.

Around this time, construction began everywhere in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Encountered with Olympic posters designed by Yusaku Kamekura, I became fascinated by the world of graphic design, finding the future in design expression. I majored in design at Tokyo University of the Arts, and joined an advertising agency after graduation. I have been naturally familiar with drawing and crafting as I have always believed that I can draw or craft anything that I could not obtain since my childhood, so it was a part of the process of finding out how to make a living through drawing and creation. But soon I started to realize that what I wanted to do was to give a form to my own aesthetic sense.

During the day I worked at the company, and at night and on holidays I spent my time producing artworks. My passion for artistic expression naturally intensified as I worked on my own production, but the clincher was the stage performance of Joni Mitchell. I was totally overwhelmed by her creativity, and I decided to quit my design job after nearly six years.

When I was looking for a place to exhibit my work, I happened to know about the Sagacho Exhibit Space, which was “an alternative space” run by Kazuko Koike in downtown Tokyo. It was extremely fortunate for me to be given the opportunity to hold my first solo exhibition in the space, as I envisioned a place where visitors could experience something new, other than a conventional gallery.

What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your paintings?

It is not something I can make one clear answer, but I focus on polysemy, ambiguity, incompleteness, unfinishedness, deficiency or the relation between nature and artificial objects by depicting structures. They are not all of them, but part of the concept to which I pay attention.

I also give weight to simultaneity of past, present, and future — or that of construction, restoration, and demolition. My attempt is to depict the atmosphere of a space created by structures that deviate from their intended function or meaning.

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

I do not think it is evolving, but simply expanding. My interests have not changed since childhood. Growing up seeing the cityscape of industrial districts or the large roofs and chimneys of the neighboring bathhouse every day, I have always been more interested in industrial products, machine tools, structures, geometric forms, which are the things made by human hands than in shapes created by nature.

If anything has changed, it would be just the ratio of artificial to natural objects. The scope of the motifs, subjects or materials I choose to draw has been expanded with the changing era, but the fact that they are all involved in things made by humans remains unchanged. The expanded two edges may appear entirely different, and if you cropped it partially, it might seem incoherent, but as I named my body of work as “Continuum” in my previous retrospective exhibition, all pieces are connected. Everything exists within this continuum.

Who or what are your biggest influences, both artistically and personally?

One of the reasons I aspired to be a creator was science fiction novels, especially speculative fiction such as Philip K. Dick’s. I read so many science fiction novels in my teens, and they taught me that we are allowed to think about the things or worlds that do not exist even as an adult.

During my college years, I casually stopped by a bookshop and found an art book of Charles Sheeler, an artist who painted industrial scenes. Those cityscapes were something really familiar to me, but I had not expected that industrial motifs could be fine arts until then.  Ever since I recognized that kind of industrial art, my primal landscape ​​of the chimney of the bathhouse or water towers became the main motif for me.

The music of Brian Eno, who made the new genre of ambient music, is also the most influential element for me. Music is the main source of my inspiration, and his music’s statelessness and the atmosphere of unknown time and place helped me a lot to visualize my imagination.

I have always been inspired by many creators from a variety of genres, and they all compose my artwork by interacting with each other in complex ways and accelerating the process.

What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?

I am currently working on making a new series of work for a next solo exhibition. It is very difficult to answer the question of what I can expect from myself in the future. My work is a response to what happens in society, so as of 2026, in this very unstable era, I would have to say that I do not know. Otherwise I have to lie.

If there is anything I can dare to expect, it might be a physicality that does not depend on technology. What I have always loved are the works in which hands, body, and technique become one, and that is what I strive for. I am using my own filter to see and make things, and it is quite physical and personal.

I think I am a bystander of technology sinceI have determined to make my work using only my own body, without digital technology. I know it is going against the times, but it is the last thing I can hold out hope for myself at the same time. 

In what ways do you think the art world has changed since you started your career?

To be honest, I do not think I am in a position to speak about the art world by generalizing it. Above all, market research and investigating trends in the art world are not my job. I am always occupied with finding the sources of inspiration – mainly a new sound – and the landing point of my next piece that I have no time to think about something else. I would be the last person to know about movements in the art world.

Text and photo courtesy of Minoru Nomata

Website: https://www.nomataminoru.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minoru_nomata/