In his debut exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ, Yu Nishimura shares with us his domestic world, using paintings of friends and family, pets, and pastoral landscapes to depict a life quietly lived. Nishimura has titled this exhibition Synopsis to reflect both the etymology of the word and its connection to the themes explored in his paintings. Deriving from the Greek origins syn meaning ‘together’ and opsis ‘sight’ or ‘field of vision’, Nishimura creates an experience of viewing all at once.
Working predominantly with oil paint in a reductive palette, often dragged with a rag or dry brush to suggest movement or temporality, Nishimura engages a painterly style that combines tropes of scroll paintings, Japanese Anime and the standard digital images that record home and family life. Often a revolving community of subjects look directly at the viewer but with the reserved expression of the dreamer or the deep in thought, and on occasion the protagonist is interrupted by a second or third figure. This suggestion of linked relationships, familial or romantic, in flux or contemplation, gives these portraits a suggestion of psychological narrative.
As an artist dedicated to capturing the ephemeral nature of the everyday, the portraits are contextualised by paintings that evoke the comfortingly mundane and intimate routines of family life: collecting shells on a shoreline, walking among flowers, the clutter of a home office, the calm geometry of the rural Japanese landscape, a house party, a litter of kittens – all providing a brief impression of the lives lived. Synopsis reflects Nishimura’s perceptive oeuvre and his ability to spectate and reconstruct ubiquitous environments into rich and emotional pictorial space, a gentle investigation into the elusiveness of relationships and simplicity.
Yu Nishimura (b. 1982, Kanagawa, Japan) graduated from Tama Art University in 2004 and lives and works in Kanagawa. Recent solo exhibitions include Sleep Walk, ARCH Athens (2024); The Sequel: Twin Boat Songs – Verdigris Vessel, with Kazuyuki Takezaki, Echigo Tsumari, Tōkamachi (2023); December Light, La Società della Api, Monaco (2023); and Aperto 09 Nichimura Yu-paragraph, Kanazawa 21st Century Museum Ishikawa (2018); project N 61, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2015). Recent group exhibitions include L’INCONTRO, Le Quai, Monaco (2023); CADAN Yurakucho, Tokyo (2023); TRACK, DASH, SSTROKE, Goya Curtain, Setagaya (2023); Open Storage: 25 Years of Collecting, The Warehouse, Dallas (2022); Tiere, MD BAR, Cologne (2022); An Exhibition with Little Information, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan (MOCA Busan) (2022); Natural Function, Spiral Garden, Omotesando, Tokyo (2022); and Gute Nacht, curated by Oriane Durand, Braunsfelder, Cologne (2022). Nishimura has been recognised with numerous awards including the Grand Prize, Koji Kinutani Prize (2017); Excellent Work Award, FACE 2014: Sompo Japan Art Award Exhibition (2014); and July Incentive Awar – Kenjiro Hosaka, Shell Art Award (2013). His work is held in various prestigious public collections internationally including AMOCA Wales – Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris; MWoods Museum; Kanazawa 21st Century Museum; Kiyosu City Haruhi Art Museum / Aichi; and The Taguchi Art Collection.